Free Republic

Fr. Dwight Longenecker, posting on his“Standing on my Head” blog (appropriately named given the frequency with which pontifications seem to flow so freely from his other end), recently suggested that traditionalists (aka Catholics) are “getting old.” Obviously, he’s never been to a “traditionalist” gathering to witness the overwhelming presence of young, often quite large, families. “Not only are they dying out,” he wrote, “but their ideas are dying out.” It isn’t immediately clear what “ideas” he has in mind, but presumably he is speaking of such notions as the Social Kingship of Christ as taught with such stunning clarity by...

Some months ago I was down to take a wedding on a Saturday. The couple had been prepared by the deacon. The groom was from a nominally Catholic family, the girl was unbaptized. So the wedding party turned up for the rehearsal on the Friday and, as usual, people were in high spirits, but in this case there was some rolling of eyes and poor behavior from some of the non Catholics. I was told by one of the assistants that they were mocking the Catholic Church and making light of what was going on. So, as I conducted the...

Modernism and the Magisterium After analyzing the modernism in the Anglican Church it was pointed out that there's plenty of modernism in the Catholic Church too. True enough, and because blog posts should be short and punchy, I left this issue for another day. It is true that all the problems I outlined in the post on Modernism in the Anglican Church are present in the Catholic Church. In many ways the effects have been even more devastating. At least the Anglicans with their good taste have preserved beautiful liturgy, architecture and sacred music in the midst of the modernism. Many...

Modernist Christianity must eventually die or cease to be Christian. At this time modernism still wears Christian clothes in the mainstream Protestant churches and in parts of the Catholic Church. This cannot last much longer for some very simple reasons: 1. Modernists deny supernaturalism and therefore they are not really religious. Now by 'religion' I mean a transacton with the supernatural. Religion (whether it is primitive people jumping around a campfire or a Solemn High Mass in a Catholic Cathedral) is about an interchange with the other world. It is about salvation of souls, redemption of sin, heaven, hell damnation,...

Why I Left Anglicanism I'm often asked why I left the Anglican Church to become a Catholic. Was it women's ordination or some other issue? Well, the debate over women's ordination was an influence. It made me re-examine the question of authority in the church. I have written about my conversion several places, and these articles can be found on my website under the 'articles' tab. However, the more I think about the reasons for my conversion, the more I realize that the real problem was not women's ordination, nor was it, at depth, the question of authority in the...