Let us remember that Catholics must always follow their properly formed consciences in rendering unto Caesar what is his.... A rumination on the Romney candidacy here .

It is refreshing to see the Holy Father teaching about the Devil's role in falsehood in our society-after all he is the Father of Lies, whose goal is to stand truth on its head, and is hence our first moral relativist!

Many Catholic and Christian men struggle with an ever increasing addiction these days, and the Church would do well not to shy away from using the pulpit to address the issues.   Here is a piece offering sage advice to curates.....

                                                                          Peter Kreeft Peter Kreeft has turned a prescient phrase concerning a certain color and the reality that  " wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat."  Here is a fine read giving  Catholic  teaching on pornography, and advice on how to enter the narrow gate....

In Chapter three, I wrote the following: "If one is worldly and hedonistic, Satan enters with temptations of the flesh. One hears often that the “liberation” of the human libido began in earnest in the United States in the “sexual revolution” of the 1960s. Americans, troubled over repressive attitudes toward human sexuality, hoped for a revolution that would free them from outdated moral and social constraints. The ensuing revolution resulted not in liberation but in license and a host of societal sexual crises. One has only to think of the tremendous increase in the number of post-1960s illegitimate births and abortions, sexually transmitted diseases, opposition to censorship of pornography (especially on the Internet), and the resulting sexual addiction (in some extreme instances resulting in murder). Consider too the tremendous blows to marriage and the family done by adultery, the battle over the homosexual lifestyle in the United States, Canada and Europe (now to the poi...

In The Smoke of Satan I discuss at length the Church's teaching that division within the Body of Christ is the result of sin, pure and simple.With that in mind, perhaps this piece from The Tablet will enlighten us as to why there is such division in the Church!.

In my book Chapter4 discusses the loss of a sense of the transcendent at Mass, as neomodernist liturgists under the influence of Enlightenment thinkers were swindled into playing up the Mass as a community meal at the table of the Lord..... Here is an interesting poll question to take on the subject...   For a look at the Scriptural and Patristic sources for the Holy sacrifice of the Mass, look here .

When JFK ran for President in 1960, many Protestants were concerned that if elected Pope John XXIII might have a direct line to the Oval Office.  This Jackie could not understand: "[paraphrasing] Why are they worried? Jack is such a lousy Catholic!' What follows here is a reflection from a Washington insider on the Catholic faith of Mitt Romney's choice for Veep.

From The Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God: ….many a bishop in the face of the neomodernist threat have proven incapable of willingness to lay down his life for his sheep. The bureaucracies operating on all levels in the Church were staffed with neomodernist activists and intellectuals who established an entrenched elite committed to the “spirit of Vatican II’ in advancing their agenda of radical change. A noted orthodox Thomist and scholar [Ralph McInerney] has written, “Today it is the rare bishop who is in charge of the bureaucracy that has metastasized around him.” That this presented a major obstacle to furthering Vatican II’s call to individual holiness is also evident in John Paul II’s response to this phenomenon in his Apostolic Letter of May, 1998, Apostolos Suos . Here the Pope urgently reminded the Church of the limited authority of the national episcopal conferences and their bureaucracies, which were to be run by, and speak only for the bishops and not their staf...

In Chapter Six of my soon-to-be published The Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God., I recount how bishops were given the message from Rome not to admonish Catholics who chose to contracept after neomodernist theologians hoodwinked them into believing that it was morally permissible, this so as not to create division in the Church. This of course resulted in division in the Church. It is heart warming on this the feast of the Assumption to see  Catholic bishops fulfilling their role as set down in thje teaching of Vatican II!

Now that the London Olympics have concluded, and recalling my blog of Aug 4 on the Olympians attending the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, I thought it apropos to add this story on Christian Olympians unafraid to give reason for the hope within them....

That’s a credit to him, that he at least had pangs of conscience; whereas these other orders, like the Jesuits, even when they saw that the IHMs were almost extinct, neverthe­less they invited the same team in. Oh, yes. Well, actually we started with the Jesuits before we started with the nuns. We did our first Jesuit work­shop in ‘65. Rogers got two honorary doctorates from Jesuit universities…. A good book to read on this whole question is Fr. Jo­seph Becker’s The Re-FormedJesu­its. It reviews the collapse of Jesuit training between 1965 and 1975. Je­suit formation virtually fell apart; and Father Becker knows the influence of the Rogerians pretty well. He cites a number of Jesuit novice masters who claimed that the authority for what they did—and didn’t do—was Carl Rogers. Later on when the Jesuits gave Rogers those honorary doctorates, I think that they wanted to credit him with his influence on the Jesuit way of life. But do you think there were any short-term beneficial...

I am impressed with the spiritual as well as physical prowess of many Olympic athletes of the JP II generation, as evidenced here!  Clearly JP II would be proud of the rowers no doubt (no Olympic kayaking), but sorry Holy Father, no skiing here!

Often when trying to share the Catholic faith we are called to give reasons for the hope that we have in Our Lord, but may have encountered erroneous "gotcha statements" and finger-point moments such as the ones enumerated here , responses to which are easy to master! Master them , and plant the mustard seed!

Good News. The Holy Father has completed his Jesus of Nazareth trilogy. I made extensive use of volume one in composing my Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God , due out this fall. If you have ever been confused about what to believe about Jesus, these three works written by the planet's preeminent biblical theologian will set you straight!