Dwight Longenecker's Blog, page 160

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?

My apologetics article about the Blessed Virgin Mary for Columbia magazine has got a huge readership. The Knights have now published it online here. The editor set a tough goal for me: explain in simple terms the main Marian dogmas in simple language in the length of a short article. Phew! It helped focus my [Read More...]

I Scream for my iScreen

Here is the second part of my speculation about the advance of technology and the death of text. We are living through a revolution in technology more significant than the invention of movable type. What will it mean for education, religion, learning, politics, communication? I wonder how this technological revolution will change our education and [Read More...]

What to Say to That Bible Christian

We had some fun with the eighth grade class this week. I was asked to teach some basic Catholic apologetics. I began with explaining where Baptist and Bible Christians originated, why they believe in sola Scriptura and the best way to counter their most common challenges. So often the secularists mock Christianity by pointing out that [Read More...]

A Kiss and A Rock

Media coverage of Catholic events inevitably brings up some howlers. I remember one commentator who wrote solemnly about the Pope’s “crow’s ear”–the staff with the crook at the top that he carries everywhere. This weekend’s visit to the Holy Land had me gasping when someone on NPR said about the church of the Holy Sepulchre, [Read More...]

Stuck Between A Wall and a Hard Place

Here is my latest article for Aleteia–commenting on Pope Francis’ response to the barrier wall in the West Bank, the memorial wall to Israeli victims of violence and the Wailing Wall. Good will and human effort provide two ways forward to peace, but there is a third factor mainstream reporters overlook, and that factor is [Read More...]

Technology and the Death of Text

Here is my latest article for The Imaginative Conservative…continuing my observations about the new technology and the increasing irrelevance of textual communications. As audio visual communication becomes more, inexpensive and ubiquitous will we witness the death of text? Already the screen has all but killed the daily newspaper, the and the weekly news magazine. What [Read More...]

More Pope Saints?

After the Canonization of Pope St John XXIII and Pope St John Paul II are there more popes in the canonization queue? News is that Paul VI will be beatified in the fall and on the plane on the way back from the Holy Lands reporters asked about Pius XII. The wartime pope’s cause has [Read More...]

Do Catholics Worship Statues?

Here is my latest article for Integrated Catholic Life website–an apologetics piece which explains the Catholic veneration of saints. When I was a Protestant I wondered why Catholics had so many statues of saints in their churches. There were two problems. First, I had been raised to believe that carved images were wrong because they [Read More...]

The Pope, a Jew and a Muslim

Here is my latest article for Aleteia which comments on the inter-faith dimension of the Holy Father’s trip to the Holy Lands Why is Pope Francis going to the Holy Land accompanied by a Jew and a Muslim? Is he saying all religions are equal? Is he proposing that all religions are simply different paths [Read More...]

Former Nun Tells LCWR To Pull Out

Former Ursuline sister Carole Ganim writes here about the present face off between the progressive sisters of the LCWR and the Vatican.It’s the predictable rant about dictatorial patriarchy, rich fat cat priests in the hierarchy bossing women about etc etc. etc. Carole admires the LCWR sisters for their “faithful steadfastness” in the face of cruel oppression, [Read More...]