Dwight Longenecker's Blog, page 99

Did They “Bury a Bum” at the Vatican?

  My latest article for CRUX highlights the controversy that has arisen over PewSitter’s offensive headline about the burieal of homeless pilgrim Willy Herteleer On Dec. 12, Willy died in a hospital near the Vatican and a few of his friends began to look for a burial place for him. German journalist Paul Badde, author [Read More...]

Managing the Mystery of Money

Money. Stuff. Greed. Geesh! The problems it causes! Here’s one from parish life. Recently my car was in the shop for repairs so the insurance company put me into a rental car. It happened to be a new Chevy Malibu. My usual car was a seven year old Volvo sedan. So I park the  Malibu [Read More...]

Remembering the Armenians

As the wolves of ISIS have captured whole villages of Christians we should remember the horrors of the Armenian genocide which took place in the same part of the world with the same culprits. ZENIT reports on the work of German historian Michael Hesemann who has discovered a cache of documents concerning the Armenian genocide [Read More...]

Eliot in Love

  My article this week for Imaginative Conservative is about the women in T.S.Eliot’s life. His disastrous marriage to Vivienne Haigh Wood and his happy marriage to Valerie Fletcher are well known. What is not so well known is that he had a long term friendship with an old college flame, Emily Hale. Between the [Read More...]

Do You Enjoy Being Miserable?

Let’s face it. Some people enjoy being miserable. Here’s why: First of all, it could be that it is simply their personality type. When I ran a business training company before I was ordained we used a personality type program to help people improve working conditions. I soon realized that there were three personality types [Read More...]

How Death Gave Mozart the Joy of Life

From a Letter Mozart wrote to his father shortly before his father’s death…. As death, when we come to consider it closely, is the true goal of our existence, I have found during the last few years much closer relations with this best and truest friend of mankind, so that his image is not only no [Read More...]

The Mystery and Meaning of Martyrdom

When faced with the new horrors confronting Christians in the world today one comes back time and again to ask “Why”? First of all we consider the enemy. Within the world there is an irrational rage that surges out into violence. One cannot enter into any kind of discussion with such violent and irrational rage. [Read More...]

The Christian Holocaust Continues

The Christians captured by ISIS forces earlier in the week are now being executed according to this report from ZENIT Terrorist group Islamic State (IS) has started killing hostages seized after it took Assyrian Christian villages in Syria’s Hassake governorate – with reports that around 15 are dead.  In a message sent to Catholic agencies working [Read More...]

Is Yoga Dangerous?

Television preacher Pat Robertson has warned viewers not to practice yoga because they will be unwittingly be praying to Hindu gods. What is yoga and is it incompatible with Catholicism? Fr John Hardon explains more about it in this short article Yoga is incompatible with Catholicism because the best known practice of Hindu spirituality is [Read More...]

FaithWorks! for Lent

My weekly newsletter FaithWorks! is being published again for Lent. During Lent I’ll be writing a series of articles on the seven precepts of the church and why they’re important. The first is on our duty to  attend Mass weekly. Included in the newsletter are practical teaching points, resources and links to helpful information and [Read More...]