My eldest son is an altar boy. His job sometimes seems mostly symbolic, but there are times when I can tell that his work for the Church is important. In an Eastern parish, we have a clear delineation separating the altar from the rest of the church building. This stock photo from my church website […]

Easter (Pascha) homily of St. John Chrysostom

Carl Trueman is encouraged by reports that a huge number of people have left the Catholic Church. When I saw this, I assumed that the data to which he refers shows that these Catholics had all come to embrace the Protestant doctrine of justification, which is supposed to be the sine qua non of the […]

Two days ago, Professor Lawrence Feingold of Ave Maria University’s Institute for Pastoral Theology and author of The Natural Desire to See God According to St. Thomas and his Interpreters gave a lecture titled “The Freedom of the Will” to the Association of Hebrew Catholics. The audio recordings of the lecture and of the following […]

Catholicism is a religion of truth, not opinion. This truth is a divinely revealed truth, not simply one we make up as we go along. Be that as it may, it is no secret that the Catholic Church is beset by certain elements that reject the revealed truth of the faith. It is a spirit […]

Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, will host a conference dedicated to the recent trend of theological or spiritual reading of Sacred Scripture. The conference will run 16-17 September 2011. Presenters include notable Protestant scholars Kevin Vanhoozer, Peter Leithart, Hans Boersma, and Iain Provan, as well as Catholic scholars Brian Daley, SJ, R. R. Reno, […]

As a scholar, a writer, and a theologian, C. S. Lewis was very much a medieval man, for whom reality is both extravagant and sweetly ordered—firm and full but neither starched nor stifling.  Lewis came to learn and then richly show that all good things are originally and eventually taken up in that which is their source […]

At a recent conference in Calgary, Alberta, Fr. Aidan Nichols OP discussed Pope Benedict XVI’s ecumenical vision that led to the Apostolic Constitution, Anglicanorum coetibus. Fr. Nichols also addressed the liturgical dimension of the new Constitution, which invites groups of Anglicans to corporately enter into full communion with the Catholic Church, bringing their distinctive patrimony […]

In this interview from April 1, 2011, Catholic Answers host Patrick Coffin and I discuss the life and legacy of John Calvin. Some points of interest include Calvin’s attitude towards “denominationalism,” adultery and divorce in Calvin’s Geneva, Calvin on predestination, Calvin’s relationship to Luther and Augustine, and the theological innovations of Calvin’s successors.

Monergists, i.e. Calvinists and some Lutherans, claim that man cannot cooperate with God in salvation, because that would detract from God’s glory. I think that by God’s glory they mean something like “God appearing very impressive to everyone.” They probably mean additional though related things, like God doing whatever he wants. But let’s stick with […]