Start here.
I have written here since 2010 on evangelization, parish life, Scripture, apologetics, and the moral life. These six are the best place to begin.
Go Home and Live as Missionary Disciples
If your faith feels humdrum, you may not have entered the mission yet. A talk to men on what that asks of you.
Formed By Distraction
Eliot described minds pulled from one distraction to the next. We now carry that in our pockets. What is it forming in us?
What Is a Catholic?
A plain answer: who belongs to the Church Christ founded on the Apostles, and what holds that Church together.
Why You Need Your Men’s Group
Before asking whether men’s groups work, ask what problem they are meant to solve.
Why Protestants Are Becoming Catholic at My Parish
What draws evangelicals and mainline Protestants into the Catholic Church, as they told me in class.
How God Speaks in Human Words
The first of four articles on how the Bible is at once a human book and the Word of God.
Merry Christmas
This is my first Christmas with my daughter, Kateri Marie. She is the most beautiful little girl that God has ever created and is such a happy baby that it seems effortless to raise her. Shannon and I hope to build traditions this year that will last her the rest of her childhood. As she gets older, we always want to emphasize the spiritual reasons for the season, so that means we have to think "Advent" and not just "Christmas".
We could not afford to buy an Advent wreath or a decent manger scene (next year!), but we have made do with a 3 foot plastic tree from Target plopped on our end table. Though we didn't buy gifts for each other this year, we bought Kateri a toy and about 10 other people "just had" to buy her something as well, so those are the gifts under the tree.
My favorite part of these last few days of Advent is reading to Kateri about the meaning of Christmas. Sure she is only six months old and has no idea what I'm saying, but it still makes this dad so happy to share our Faith with her! We have several books that a friend and school teacher purchased for us regarding Christmas, both religious and not-so-religious (Clifford's First Christmas fits this description!). Reading to my daughter is definitely a highlight of my day, even when she is trying so hard to shove the corner of the book into her mouth.
The TSA and Sexual Immodesty
I know this is a religious blog, focusing mostly on the application of the new evangelization to parish life, but I am so enraged about the hideous sexual immodesty of the bureaucrats at the TSA and their new procedures. I believe that this government has gone way too far in its pursuit of perfect safety and security.
sweet bumper-sticker
Actually, I don't believe the gov't cares one bit about our safety or security, but rather that these machines are just another part of the Military-Industrial-Gov't Complex. After all, the former head of the TSA who got the ball rolling on these machines in US airports is now the head of the company that makes them! (State-Corporatism)
So, when you go through security and they think your pants or skirt is too baggy, or if you set off the metal detector twice in a row, the TSA will either a.) subject a person to a x-ray scan that takes a nude photograph of them or, b.) you can opt-out of the porno-scan for an invasive groping.
Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization
As summer was just beginning, Pope Benedict XVI announced his intention to form a new Dicastery within the Roman Curia. This Council is called "The Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization" and its purpose is to confront those cultures that were rooted deeply in the Gospel, but which are now being overwhelmed by secularism and religious indifferentism.
Here's the earlier statement of the Pope from Zenit.org
There are regions in the world that ...the Gospel put down roots a long time ago, giving place to a true Christian tradition, but where in the last centuries -- with complex dynamics -- the process of secularization has produced a grave crisis of the sense of the Christian faith and of belonging to the Church.