It is, all the Saints say, better to work quietly, even as kind or critical stragglers find their way to you daily to at least ponder the great questions of our time, before our time is done. In working this way we can constantly take serious stock of where we are, spiritually (it’s not always… Read More It is not good to have fan clubs praise you
Update / clarification. The creative brilliance of Hans Zimmer aside, is computer looping music? Is the human being / composer in danger of being lost when all “music” is reduced to “nothing but” vibrations and frequencies which have allegedly “always” existed without direction? Music is evidence of the harmonious manipulation and redirection of created vibrations… Read More The Vibrations of Hans Zimmer
And the Deep Truths in Fritz Eichenberg’s ‘The Lord’s Supper‘. The other side of the Eucharist is friendship. It often happens that week after week, year after year, Christians sit and kneel next to practical strangers in church on Sundays. They leave Mass as they entered, nodding and saying hello to people they do not… Read More Strangers in the Pews
Today like never before it appears evil has let down its nets in order to tempt and haul in uncountable numbers of souls. One of the main ways the Adversary is doing this is by juxtaposing the Good next to Evil. We see this in ‘entertainment’ especially. But not only there. One need go no… Read More The Evil One has let down his nets
Modern or post-modern man (i.e., the human person, m/f) is characterized by an attachment to ambiguity and relativity. Truth, the very notion of it, is suspect in our time. As a human being, I am obliged to truly encounter my world, my times. It has engaged me. Nearly 73 years old. I have tried to… Read More The Light and Life of Being
“God is Dead; but given the way of men, there may still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown. And we – we still have to vanquish his shadow, too. — Frederich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, 109. The Forerunners: 2015: For the Neo-modernist or Progressivist Catholic today, the traditional understanding… Read More Progressivist Theology. What it is.
Best friends & much more forever 51 years and counting in 2025-26 Kahlil Gibran “You were born [again]] together, and together you shall be forevermore… But let there be spaces in your togetherness, and let the winds of the heavens dance between you.” ‘For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health… Read More In Sickness and in Health, For Better or for Worse, for Richer or for poorer…till death do we part.
First, the Problem. The famous Thomist philosopher Etienne Gilson writes, surely accurately, in his Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, “… at the very place where the Summa of Alexander and the Commentary of St. Bonaventure undertake to show that the existence of God is evident, St. Thomas devotes an article to proving that it… Read More Gilson, Saint Thomas and The Self-Attesting God
Cultural values matter. The Beatles are going through a kind of renaissance today, largely thanks to Peter Jackson, Disney and YouTube. The irony is that some of their music is so exciting and inviting we often forget to listen to the messages in the melodies and ponder the global cultural impact. Who cares?, even many Christians… Read More John Lennon’s ‘Wet Dream’
The Beatles were not just another Rock band. They were an Event with lasting cosmic effect across the entire planet, heralds of a new evangelium. Evangelium is a Latin term that translates to “gospel,” meaning “good news.” It is derived from the Ancient Greek word εὐαγγέλιον Here, in exquisite harmonies and creativity, The Beatles gave… Read More The Word
Not that I can ever fully trust Google or Facebook, but I asked A.I Gemini (Google) for an objective evaluation of CatholicCritique.com. First, in another session elsewhere, Search Assist AI quotes Julian Assange saying of another venue, “Facebook is the “most appalling spying machine” ever invented, suggesting that it allows U.S. intelligence agencies to gather personal… Read More Gemini / Google Evaluation of Catholic Critique
The late philosopher, William Barrett, in his famous book on Existentialism entitled Irrational Man, writes of faith and reason, “THOUGH strongly colored by Greek and Neo-Platonic influences, Christianity belongs to the Hebraist rather than to the Hellenist side of man’s nature because Christianity bases itself above all on faith and sets the man of faith… Read More Whose Wisdom? Whose Reason?
“It is vanity to desire a long life, and to have little care for a good life.” — Thomas a Kempis. Tolkien mourned the decline of the Shire* i.e., …the real shire of his youth which he ever remembered and sought to salvage to the extent that he could. The Shire: the simplicity and beauty… Read More Tolkien’s Battle for the Shire. And for Us All.
“What is man, that thou art mindful of him: or the son of man, that thou visitest him? Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels: thou hast crowned him with glory and honour, and hast set him over the works of thy hands: Thou hast subjected all things under his feet”—Heb 2:5-7… Read More The Image of God vs. the Myths.
“…Although they express their astonishment that We should number them amongst the enemies of the Church, no one will be reasonably surprised that We should do so, if, leaving out of account the internal disposition of the soul, of which God alone is the Judge, he considers their tenets, their manner of speech, and their… Read More On the Doctrine of the Modernists. Pope St. Pius X – 1907
Dr. Arthur Holmes, History of Philosophy : This is an excellent series, it is very informative and fair to the ancients, to Catholic, Protestant and Enlightenment philosophies from Thales to Sartre and beyond. 81 comprehensive episodes. One can learn something new with every listen, or relisten, of any episode in this History of Philosophy series.… Read More History of Philosophy
“All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” Christians and non-Christians alike. “If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”— 1 Jn.1:10 All we, like sheep, have gone astray,each of us has turned to our own way; — Isaiah 53:6 “For… Read More Truth and “Catholic Guilt”
And today. How Mamdani Won. Who he is and where is he going? See hére
Well, unless you’ve found a good and sound school (and they’re certainly out there), in your first theology courses you may not learn much about the biblical Jesus, but you’re almost guaranteed to come out knowing what these early 20th century theological neologism’s mean: formgeschicte, heilsgeschichte, eschatologiegeschichte, Menschheitsgeschichte, Gottesgeschichte, Heilsgeheimnis… I personally never found them edifying… Read More Going to Seminary?
Updated. What really happened on October 7?. SH Introductory Note: “… blindness in part has happened in Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles should come in…as touching the election, they are most dear for the sake of the fathers.” The 1566 Catechism of the Council of Trent states: “This guilt [for the death of Christ]… Read More James Lindsay Goes to Israel
America… “not in any sense Christian” “….she licensed every form of lust with laws to cleanse the stain of scandal she has spread.” — Dante, The Inferno, canto V, 57. Every four years, truths in America can change from one thing to another, even as the center – left’s quest to be the global hegemon… Read More America and Seductive False ‘Liberty’.
by Stephen Hand In Evelyn Waugh’s stunning classic, Brideshead Revisited, there is a scene which presses on my mind these days as I ponder so many forces gathering against a Church weakened greatly by the sins of her own children, both clerical and lay. All of us. It is the time when Sebastian, Lord Alex… Read More Lord Marchmain’s Long Hate
What follows is a critique of Calvinist Apologist James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries.. “…that you may know how you ought to behave yourself self in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.” — 1 Timothy 3:15 By Stephen Hand The living… Read More White Lies
“A little error in the beginning becomes a great error in the end.” — St. Thomas Aquinas. “He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead.’” –Lk.16:31. “See to it that no one makes a prey of you… Read More Pseudoscience and Origins
The Easter cards we see in ordinary stores give no hint of the shock of the disciples at seeing the empty tomb and beholding the risen Christ. And certainly not of the terrible trauma and ignominy which Our Lord had just gone through: the betrayal, the arrest, the torture and brutal execution of the Son… Read More Christ’s Victory Over Death and Postmodern Despair
When I began this website it was after I had debated within myself, video podcasts or the written word? God knows I’m handsome enough to do a podcast (-: But then I thought that since I wanted to confess the faith, despite my frailties and sins, for my grandchildren, the written word is more likely… Read More Podcast Video or the Written Word?
SH —> A.I. : I am curious what ‘you’ think of and how you might critique the following. I’m not asking you to make or pass any kind of theological or philosophical judgment. I’m primarily curious what you think of the coherence of the thesis.. If you wish, please also discuss how modern philosophy might… Read More A.I. Critiques an Approach to Theism and ‘Man’ (m/f)
Donald Trump in 2017 said to television news commentator, Bill O’Reilly in regards to Putin being a killer, “There are a lot of killers. We have a lot of killers. Well, you think our country is so innocent?” O’REILLY retorted, “I don’t know of any government leaders that are killers.” TRUMP: “Well — take a… Read More Donald Trump and the Democrats
I ended a recent dialogue with ChatGPT about heart conditions after it proposed one more avenue of ‘thought’ that might interest me. I wrote, “I would like to stay a little longer and have a heart to heart with you now Tin Man, but I have to run. It’s impossible for me not to anthropomorphize… Read More The Singularity According to Tin Man
To be a Roman Catholic one must believe in miracles. This in itself has been a stumbling block to many. And yet the believer knows that one need only find the earth beneath one’s feet and all other genuine miracles become mere footnotes. The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, originally a student of the intractable rationalist, Bertrand… Read More Wittgenstein and Existence.
by John Daniel Davidson. G. K. Chesterton said, “Some say it is impossible to return to the past; but the truth is that there is now nothing before us but the choice between two paths which both return to the past. We can return to some sort of Catholic fellowship, or we can return to… Read More Pagan America: The Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come
Insularity: speaks only to insiders or fans, alienating broader audiences. For example, a critic might say: “The film collapses under its own self-referential weight, obsessed with referencing itself rather than telling a compelling story.” God forbid that we Christians devolve into this kind of self-referential vanity. For all his problems, Pope Francis was correct in… Read More Insularity
“May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. — St. Paul, Galatians 6:14. “Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent,… Read More Kerygma. Finding Our Way Home Again.
Moses said to the LORD, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.” — Exodus 4:10 I know the feeling. Someone said, writing is easy, It is the editing that is hard. I hope visitors… Read More Slow of Speech and Tongue
“God is dead but given the way of men there may be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown. And we will have to vanquish his shadow, too.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, # 109 At the very dawn of the 20th century, on 25 August in the year… Read More “Straying, as through infinite nothingness”: The Collapse of Nietzsche
In a biography of G.K. Chesterton published in 1943, Maisie Ward tells of this remarkable trait of the great convert and Catholic apologist: “(He) liked everybody very much, and everything very much. He liked even the things most of us dislike. He liked to get wet. He liked to be tired. After…[a particular period of]… Read More G. K. Chesterton and The Eternal Thank You
Existentialist philosophy and analysis, to the extent that it measures “the predicament of man and his world in the state of estrangement” (Paul Tillich) corroborates what Christian theology has always referred to as Original Sin. As a school of philosophy it seems pretty well dead now, but important insights of the original existentialists remain valid,… Read More Existence and the Word
… and the New Pseudo Praxis. Perhaps the most critical and classical difference between all forms of Protestantism and Catholicism lay in their respective understandings of the relationship between faith and good works. For Catholics, God’s saving work in Jesus Christ – the fruit of unmerited grace – issues in a changed heart and a… Read More Loving Theology More Than God
See also, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and a New World Order. Our complex theological predicament, which only the hierarchical Church may, in time, formally adjudicate. By Stephen Hand. 2015. If Francis and Cardinal Kasper have taught us anything over the past few years, it’s that without resurrecting that final “checkmate,” which popes from the… Read More John XXIII, Benedict XVI and Francis. 2015.
2024. I awakened this morning unexpectedly thinking of a painful absence, the absence of the sounds of Church bells, which, when we were young, summoned us to to prayer and Mass. Not that we always appreciated this when young to be sure. But it was always there. It was just there, like the rising and… Read More The Absence of the Bells
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