Charisms, Mystics, &c.

The reader may or may not be familiar with St. Catherine of Siena and Bl. Hildegard von Bingen. If not, and the reader is interested in theology, or mediaeval history, or gender stuff (prophetic ladies in a patriarchal age &c.), the reader is recommended to take a look. There are some rambling thoughts relevant to [...]

Read Full Post »

Murder in the Vatican

I apologize for not bringing this to your attention sooner, but I only just found out about it myself. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in The Hound of the Baskervilles, includes a tantalizing throwaway line pointing to the (unrecorded) adventures of the master detective Sherlock Holmes in Rome, solving mysteries for the Pontiff (presumably Leo XIII, [...]

Read Full Post »

We all fall down

Today is Ash Wednesday. So much of the Christian calendar is spent in reminding us of hope, and redemption, and eventual glory – it’s only fitting that there should be at least one day of all the year in which we are reminded of the dispiriting, absolute disaster that awaits all of us.  Sir Thomas [...]

Read Full Post »

The Grand Inquisitor

The Grand Inquisitor John Zmirak and Carla Millar. Crossroad; 2008. 76p.  First reading. “Hey, what’s that you’re reading, there?  Looks interesting.” “It’s a blank-verse graphic novel in which we discover that religious modernism is in fact a dark conspiracy.” “I… okay.” There’s really no way to sell Zmirak and Millar’s The Grand Inquisitor to anyone [...]

Read Full Post »

Notable re-emphasis

In the latest “controversial because they haven’t been paying attention” move from the Pontiff, Benedict XVI has shocked the world by re-affirming the Church’s position – most forcefully set forth in the 1965 document Nostra Aetate – that “the Jews” that the Gospels declare to be guilty of the Saviour’s death are those Jews who [...]

Read Full Post »

Conduct unbecoming

The grim wheel of politics has taken its usual turn, and we find, in Canada at the present hour, the unwholesome sight of a Catholic priest suing a prominent Catholic news agency for $500,000. The accused: LifeSiteNews, a significant and persistent element of the North American Pro-Life movement.  I have been critical of them in [...]

Read Full Post »