Dwight Longenecker's Blog, page 158

Francis Scolds Trendies and Traddies

Kathy Schiffer comments here on overly rigid traditionalists, overly lax cafeteria Catholics and those who use the church for their own gain. Half-hearted Catholics–those who believe only some of the Church’s teachings–aren’t really Catholics at all. “They may call themselves Catholic,” said Pope Francis at his morning Mass at the Domus Sancta Marthae, “but they have [Read More...]

Standing on My Head in the HuffPo

So I’m reading this article about the Pope being in poor health in the Huffington Post (while holding my nose) only to find that yours truly is quoted: A story at the conservative website Newsmax on the eve of Francis’ three-day trip to the Holy Land last month claimed the pontiff has gained weight since his [Read More...]

Muslim Prayers in the Vatican…Shock Horror?!!?

A headline is screaming across the internet about Muslim prayer being offered for the first time in the Vatican. If you read no more than the headline you’d think Pope Francis was just about to convert to Islam, become the chief Imam and turn St Peter’s into a mosque. Not so. The article is referring [Read More...]

Solzhenitsyn on the Ukraine Crisis

Joseph Pearce, biographer of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, tells the story of how he met the great man. Solzhenitsyn was famous for declining all interview requests. Nevertheless, Pearce wanted to not only write the biography, but meet the man. So Joseph wrote to him and was surprised to get a letter back inviting him to Russia for [Read More...]

More Christianity Radio Show – Randy Hain

I have been procrastinating, forgetting, not starting a new habit, neglecting a job whatever–for a year and a half! That is to link my radio show More Christianity with the blog. It’s already linked to the website, but I have been meaning to post links to the radio show podcast here for blog readers. I [Read More...]

Richard Dawkins is Britain’s Favorite Grumpy Old Git

The Daily Telegraph is probably the best paper in the world because it consistently has interesting, intelligent and light hearted opinion pieces. Here Jake Wallis Simons asks whether Richard Dawkins hasn’t become Britain’s ultimate grumpy old man. Isn’t Richard Dawkins wonderful? Not content with debunking religion – all of it – he has now turned [Read More...]

Does Pope Francis Support Conscious Evolution?

Does Pope Francis support the eco-theology of Teilhard de Chardin and Barbara Marx Hubbard? This article suggests that he does: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a French Jesuit and paleontologist who died a church outcast in New York City in 1955 at age 74. Vatican officials had suppressed his writings on sequential evolution in the universe. Teilhard [Read More...]

“Patheos is Rotten and Should be Gutted”

From the combox today is this juicy morsel: “Patheos is Rotten and Should be Gutted.” What I can’t figure out is whether this angry comment comes from the left wing or the right wing. During my time blogging at Patheos I’ve had the honor to be attacked in the most virulent and vicious manner by [Read More...]

How to Share the Gospel With People Who Don’t Care

We are in a situation in the West that the Christian church has never experienced before. We have a good news to proclaim, but those who need to hear are deaf. The atheists and anti-Catholics we can deal with. We know they hate God and hate the gospel, and we can understand and maybe even [Read More...]

Where is Jesus in the Blogger Wars?

I’ve been reading back through some of the blog posts, comments, Facebook posts, comment threads on the recent Catholic blogger wars, and at the risk of sounding like an eighth grade Christian girl, I’m thinking, where is Jesus in all this? Here a few folks get all het up because the pope did this or [Read More...]