Judas, Our Brother
Introduction — Fr. Alex Roche In June of 2017 Pope Francis visited the small village of Bozzolo in the Diocese of Cremona, located in northern Italy’s Po Valley. The images of a Roman Pontiff visiting the little town of 5,000...
Tagged: Mercy
The “Good God”/”Bad God” myth
Richard Dawkins wrote in The God Delusion: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic,...
Gearing up for Lent
Well, we just got our multimedia output for 2021 going earlier tonight with the first episode of “Where Peter Is Live.” We didn’t announce it publicly in advance and we tipped off our Patreon subscribers just an hour before we...
Choose Mercy this Lent
In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus challenges us to go “and learn the meaning of the words, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’” (9:13). Here Jesus quotes from Hosea Chapter 6, which begins with a call to return to the Lord who will...
Christian Antidotes for Drudgery
A reflection on the Sunday readings for February 7, 2021 — the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time If there ever is a time when I want to reflect on the book of Job, this isn’t that week. Job experiences make him...
Invalid Sacraments: Can you be damned on a technicality?
In light of the recent news from Detroit about a Catholic priest who discovered his baptism as an infant was invalid, Adam Rasmussen and DW Lafferty join me to discuss the Church’s approach to sacramental validity, scrupulosity, and confidence in...
What is meant by “Catholic Lite”?
It was perhaps foolish for my wife and me to attempt effective social-distancing with three children under six on a summer evening in a neighbor’s backyard. So we contracted COVID-19 on the Fourth of July. Our symptoms were relatively mild,...
Mercy for me, but not for thee
“At times one gets the impression that our society needs to have at least one group to which no tolerance may be shown; which one can easily attack and hate. And should someone dare to approach them—in this case the...
We will be judged on this
I was in prison and you visited me. — Matthew 25:36 In Victor Hugo’s masterpiece Les Miserables, the protagonist Jean Valjean is released on parole and given a yellow identification paper that said to all he met that he was...
New Episode! Divine Mercy, Doubting Thomas, & Culture Wars
In this week’s episode of Peter’s Field Hospital, Dan Amiri and Paul Fahey join me for a discussion about Divine Mercy, Saint Thomas, and Catholic Social Teaching. Next, I talk to DW Lafferty about Catholicism, Liberalism, and the Culture Wars....
Grasping at the Common Good
What will our world look like when this experiment in liberalism comes to an end? I am not asking this hypothetically. The reality is that once-democratic societies around the globe are increasingly eschewing the principles of liberalism in order to...
The Plans of St. Thomas
The Gospel reading for the second Sunday of Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday, tells the story of “Doubting Thomas.” I was grateful for the reminder that Saint Thomas was late to the game (so to speak) not just by a day...
Popular Posts