Dwight Longenecker's Blog, page 252

Pure Benedictine Bliss

I first visited a Benedictine Abbey when I was a first year theology student at Oxford. I went to Douai Abbey near Reading in Berkshire. I was immediately struck by the ancient sense of order, peace and confidence. The monks took their faith seriously, but they didn’t take themselves seriously. Over the years I visited [...]

In the World but Not of the World

I’ll tell you what I had in my fundamentalist Evangelical upbringing which the American Catholic church could use a hefty dose: It was the underlying mentality that we were “in the world, but not of the world”. We went to a little Evangelical fellowship. The families were close. We shared the same world view. We [...]

Getting Into the Habit

The other week we had a meeting at the local Catholic hospital to discuss its Catholic identity. In the present climate when the Catholic haters are in full swing and “Catholic” for many people means “sour, sexually repressed, legalistic, ignorant, fundamentalist, misogynistic, homophobic, dangerous child abuser” we can use all the positive PR possible. Our [...]

Savita Halappanavar’s Death

The baby killers are jumping on the case of the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar–an Indian woman who died in Ireland from blood poisoning. You can read about the case here. This terrible death was not caused by anti-abortion legislation in Ireland. The law there allows for abortion to save the life of the mother. This [...]

Stick ‘em Up Day Nine

I shore am getting tired of this here campaign to raise funds. Some of you folks have been paying up, but too many of you are sitting on your wallets. Now come on. Get on over there to the right sidebar and make a donation to the good padre. It encourages him no end. Let [...]

Guest Blogger Jeff Miller

Jeff Miller (aka The Curt Jester) is an application developer and retired Navy Chief who spent 40 years in the wilderness of atheism and finds himself both astonished and joyful to be a member of the Catholic Church. He blogs at Curt Jester with humorous and hilarious insights on stuff Catholic political and cultural. It’s papistical [...]

Letter to Canterbury

Fr Z publishes the open letter from the Russian Orthodox Metropolitian Hilarion to Justin Welby the Archbishop designate for Canterbury. Go here.

A Voice Crying in the Political Wilderness

George Weigel makes a case here that now is the time for a robust and uncompromising form of Catholicism to stand up and be counted in America. As for the opportunity embedded in this crisis, it is nothing less than to be the Church of the New Evangelization, full-throttle. Shallow, tribal, institutional-maintenance Catholicism is utterly [...]

The Vicar on the New ABC

Guest blogger, The Rev’d Humphrey Blytherington is Vicar of St Hilda’s, Little Snoring with All Saints, Great Snoring. He is a graduate of Plymouth University. He completed his studies for the ministry at Latimer Hall, Durham. He is married to Daphne and enjoys home brewing, model railroading and is an avid member of the Great [...]

Stick ‘em Up – Day 8

Well, some of you folks have been real generous and I’ve been talking to to padre over a glass of hooch. He says the campaign is going pretty well so far, but there’s still a ways to go. So I’m gonna twist a few more arms and shake my gun under your noses and remind [...]