Even the Devils Believe

I tend to use a more traditional church calendar, both for private devotions and for Mass on Sundays, which means this upcoming Sunday is Septuagesima, the beginning of Pre-Lent (or Gesimatide, a word some Lutherans seem to have coined). I know St Mary of Grace, the AIHM parish in Philadelphia, has been using white [...]

The paperwork is not quite done, but as some changes to our parish website and the website of our new jurisdiction are letting the cat out of the bag a bit, so to speak, I thought I would go ahead and announce it. I am incardinating into the Independent Catholic Christian Church under [...]

Rt Rev C. Christopher Epting, the chief ecumenical officer for the Episcopal Church, now has a blog, and it seems to be less managed and filtered (and therefore far more interesting) than some other “royal purple” blogs in TEC. Good to see more mainstream folks treading the path blazed by our bishops in the [...]

I thought this kind of hateful anti-Catholicism was a thing of the past in the Episcopal Church, but apparently not:
But with that said, many Episcopal parishioners love the old, icky, Rite I theology and language. They love chanting in Elizabethan English that they are unworthy to grovel beneath the table, picking up Eucharistic crumbs. They [...]

Rocco has posted a wonderful quote from a 1964 homily by Joseph Ratzinger. I wanted to share it, because it cuts straight to the heart of the problem with how salvation is often taught (certainly the way I was taught about salvation):
We are staring at the trials of everyday Christianity and [...]

Stephen Colbert calls out my alma mater, Knox College, for choosing Bill Clinton as the 2007 commencement speaker. Colbert has threatened to burn his honorary degree on-air if Knox gives Pres. Clinton “the same degree” that was given to him. (Hopefully this won’t be an issue — I’m guessing Knox will give Clinton an [...]

Yesterday was the thirty-fourth anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in the United States. Laura’s excellent post on the subject has spurred me to say something a little more definite than I did last year. (My understanding of the issue of abortion has also changed somewhat since then.)
Pace Hauerwas, we are [...]

I was in Philadelphia over the weekend, visiting +Tim Cravens and getting to know some of the people involved in his jurisdiction. A lot of good food was eaten, we had some great conversations, and Tim and I went to Solemn High Mass at St Clement’s Church on Sunday morning, which was a real joy.
On [...]

Last night I read an incredible collection of poems written by a soldier who served in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Iraq. It’s called Here, Bullet, and it was written by Brian Turner, who received an MFA (in poetry, I’m guessing) from the University of Oregon before serving in the Army.
Good poetry can break an experience wide open, [...]

Today is the Feast of St Antony the Great, Abbot, Father of All Monks. Antony was one of the so-called Desert Mothers and Fathers, men and women who lived out in the deserts of Egypt during the early days of Christian monasticism.
For all the really complicated and academic theological language I’ve parsed over the last [...]