Dwight Longenecker's Blog, page 113

Building Beauty in the Bible Belt

Beauty is the language of worship, and we’re determined to build a beautiful new church in our parish in Greenville, South Carolina Readers of this blog will have learned that this romanesque style church will incorporate a set of fantastic stained glass windows salvaged from the church of St Mary Morning Star in Pittsfield MA. [Read More...]

On Catholicism and Killing Cops

Why should anyone be surprised at the recent spate of random murders of policemen? When a society goes bad all of it goes bad together. When individuals stop believing the Christian religion its not long before they stop believing in Christian morality and when they stop believing in Christian morality they stop behaving morally. The [Read More...]

The Family – Your Ladder to Heaven

What too many people seem to miss is that marriage is a sacrament. That means it is a means of grace. It is one of the great seven. It is one of the gifts in which heaven is poured into our lives through the physical. Because marriage is a sacrament it is sacred. If you [Read More...]

The Laymen’s Lament

I should be clear. One of the rules I have set myself is to never criticize a fellow priest on this blog. Even if I think the priest is an insane traditionalists nutcase or an idiotic left wing, crypto Marxist new age freak I keep my mouth shut. Almost all the time, and when I’ve [Read More...]

The Best of British Christmas

Allow me on this Boxiing Day to say that England tops USA for Christmas. Hands down. No debate. No question. Not even a possibility of a question. Here’s why: 1. English radio stations do not play nauseating Christmas music like Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the red nosed reindeer chestnuts roasting by the open fire jack [Read More...]

St Mary Help of Christians, Aiken SC

Fr Renuard West has posted some pictures of the new St Mary Help of Christians church being built in Aiken, South Carolina. This church along with St Paul’s Spartanburg and the new Our Lady of the Rosary is helping to put the Diocese of Charleston on the map for innovative traditional architecture. Here are some [Read More...]

Idol Speculation

Did the pagans really worship idols? If so, what was going on? To be precise, they did not worship idols as such, but they worshipped the gods who they believed the idols represented. But it was more than that. They also believed that the idols became the channels for the invisible god. If you like [Read More...]

Ugly as Sin?

Michael Rose’s book Ugly As Sin:  was read by the members of our building committee when they began planning the new Our Lady of the Rosary Church in Greenville, South Carolina. They studied the trends in modern architecture and did their homework. When I arrived in the parish four years ago they already had a modest, [Read More...]

Ten Ways to Battle Gossip

Have you ever really stopped to consider how ugly gossip is? Working in school, family and parish life you experience time and again how colossally stupid, destructive and therefore sinful gossip can be. The reason gossip is stupid is because it almost invariably deals in half truths. A person gets one side of the story [Read More...]

The Terrorism of Torture

How can you counter terrorism with torture when torture is a form of terrorism? Here’s why I mean by that radical statement that “torture is a form of terrorism” The power of terrorism is that it is completely lawless. The terrorist believes that his cause condones outrageous cruelty. His cause not only threatens to kill [Read More...]