Category Archives: News

Advent Sunday 2025: Introduction to the Season

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I pray to God that he will raise up teachers and preachers in his Church today who take Advent seriously again. From Common Worship, Times and Seasons, p. 33

Advent is a season of expectation and preparation, as the Church prepares to celebrate the coming (adventus) of Christ in his incarnation, and also looks ahead to his final advent as judge at the end of time.The readings and liturgies not only direct us toward Christ’s birth, they also challenge the modern reluctance to confront the theme of divine judgment:

Every eye shall now behold him robed in dreadful majesty. (Charles Wesley)

The Four Last Things – Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell – have been traditional themes for Advent meditation.The characteristic note of Advent is therefore expectation, rather than penitence, although the character of the season is easily colored by an analogy with Lent.The anticipation of Christmas under commercial pressure has also made it harder to sustain the appropriate sense of alert watchfulness, but the fundamental Advent prayer remains ‘Maranatha’ – ‘Our Lord, come’ (1 Corinthians 16.22). Church decorations are simple and spare, and purple is the traditional liturgical color. In the northern hemisphere, the Advent season falls at the darkest time of the year, and the natural symbols of darkness and light are powerfully at work throughout Advent and Christmas.The lighting of candles on an Advent wreath was imported into Britain from northern Europe in the nineteenth century, and is now a common practice… The Third Sunday of Advent was observed in medieval times as a splash of color in the restrained atmosphere of Advent (Gaudete or ‘Rose Sunday’), and the last days of Advent were marked by the sequence of Great ‘O’ Antiphons, which continue to inspire modern Advent hymns and meditations.

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Jeremy M. Christiansen (FT): On Converting Your Spouse

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This is an excellent piece. I commend the author for recognizing true love being expressed when he sees it. No shrill voice here. Neither liberal idolatry or shortsightedness. For those with ears to hear, listen and understand.

At a recent Turning Point USA event at the University of Mississippi, JD Vance remarked that he hoped his wife, Usha, would convert to Catholicism. The backlash was swift and savage. People criticized the vice president for being a bad husband and not respecting his wife’s choices and Hindu faith. Most of it was just noise. The backlash does, however, express an unfortunate reality. It is the terminus of American small-l liberalism: The ultimate truth is individual autonomy, and by publicly expressing a desire for his wife to convert, the vice president committed the cardinal sin in the religion of liberalism.  

The vice president’s marital situation is common. According to the latest data from Pew Research Center, just over 25 percent of marriages in America consist of spouses with different religions. And for a few years, I too was counted among them.

My wife and I were both raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, served as missionaries for the church, were married in the Los Angeles temple, come from devout LDS families, and were ourselves devout. We had been married about ten years with four children when I left the LDS religion and converted to Catholicism. My wife had no interest in leaving her faith at that time. But eventually, she too became Catholic. Not everyone’s experience is the same: Since writing about our conversions in various publications, I have received a number of emails over the years saying: “I converted to Catholicism, my spouse did not. What do I do?” There are, to my mind, two related answers.

First, a simple directive: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and delivered himself up for it” (Eph. 5:25). Given that to love is to will the good of the other, that God is the greatest good, and that religion is an aspect of the virtue of justice whereby we render unto God what is owed him, it follows that husbands are to will that their wives believe and practice the true religion. JD Vance ought to will that his wife convert. To do otherwise would be unloving. 

I told my wife on more than one occasion that I hoped she would convert, and I even expressed that desire publicly. Willing the good of the other is a concept mostly lost on liberalized Americans. “You do you” is the motto of our day. But it is an uncharitable motto.

Second, once we desire the conversion of our spouse, we need to know how to prudently direct our will to that end. I am grateful to the pastor I had during the time in which my wife and I were of different faiths, because he counseled me against both indifference and coercion. He advised prudence. As Aquinas writes, “it belongs to the ruling of prudence to decide in what manner and by what means man shall obtain [virtue].” Each marriage is different; each will need a different approach. When is the time to have that “hard conversation”? When is the time to just let something go? No one knew my wife and our relationship and our family better than I did. Prudence helps us to do the right thing, for the right reason, in the right time, and the right place.

Ultimately, it is God’s grace that first moves our wills toward him. We are merely instruments. And we never know when the right moment to say this or that thing, make this or that invitation, will be. My pastor wisely told me to faithfully live the sacramental life and use prudent judgment. And that is ultimately all I can tell anyone who finds themselves in that situation. Trust God. Never doom. And remember, prudently and publicly expressing the heartfelt hope that one’s spouse convert may just be the means by which God gives that ever important “twitch upon the thread.” JD Vance should be commended, not condemned.

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John M. Grondelski (FT): Where the Church’s Immigration Rhetoric Fails

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A good and balanced piece on immigration. Would that the Church’s leaders pay attention. For those with ears to hear, listen and understand.

Catholic discussions of immigration frequently omit salient facts, most prominently the legal status of the “migrant.” I criticized this curious neglect in Pope Leo XIV’s apostolic exhortation Dilexi Te. In that document, the discussion of “migrants” ignores the question of their legal status. Since then, Pope Leo has acknowledged state sovereignty while saying it must be “balanced” with the duty to provide “refuge”—telling us neither how such balance is achieved nor assuring that the Church won’t always fault nations for addressing a migration crisis. Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich’s latest video insisting the “Church stands with migrants” likewise evades the question of legality. 

An honest discussion would not circumvent the issue of legal status, which is why growing numbers of people are beginning to ask whether the Church is a good-faith interlocutor on questions of mass migration. Glossing over the distinction between legal and illegal residency cannot be ecclesial oversight; too many critics have pointed out that the Church regularly sidesteps this issue. Church leaders at times formally acknowledge state sovereignty over immigration, but in practice the rhetoric (“undocumented”) suggests otherwise. Which makes one think the Church is dodging the question of illegal status, a posture more befitting a lobbyist pushing an agenda than an honest broker addressing a question that affects the common good. 

The Church seeks to frame the discussion of illegal immigration through the lens of “human dignity.” This is a fitting concept with which to begin. But the Church’s selective use of this framing neglects to address the way in which illegal immigration offends human dignity.

Free will is an essential aspect of human dignity. Man is alteri incommunicabilis:Nobody can will for me. Nobody can ultimately makeme want something. I can be influenced, pressured, and even physically forced, but I cannot be made to will something. Even God does not interfere with free will; in the end, he respects what we have chosen, even if we damn ourselves in the process.  

Willing is not limited to individuals. Political sovereignty is also an act of will. It is a decision of a community, exercised by its designated leaders. In Catholic thought, sovereign decisions are accorded deference, because the one charged with attending to the common good is supposed to employ an objective overview of the common good—which individual parties with individual interests might not see—when making a decision. It’s why distributive justice belongs to the one responsible for the community and not its individual members.

In modern political structures, the sovereign will is expressed by the democratic choice of a majority, adopted through processes established by rule of law. In our constitutional order, this is done through passing legislation in accord with proper procedures. These laws are entitled to the presumption that they serve the common good, which means that they are not subject to veto by parties outside of the legislative process. There is a profound moral reason for the presumptive respect for validly enacted laws: They express the rightly adopted will—an essential aspect of human dignity—of the organized political community on a question. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 fits that requirement.

Thus, if we recognize human dignity to be expressed through free choices, individual as well as collective, and that the latter deserve our deference as decisions made for the common good by those responsible for that common good, then validly enacted laws also deserve recognition as expressions of human dignity. A political community’s free choice of a morally legitimate option (no one has claimed immigration restrictions are intrinsically evil) by a collective decision in the name of the common good cannot be dismissed on the ground that it affects the human dignity of an individual, as if the individual is the only party that has a dignity claim.

The Church’s unartful dodges on the migrant question have especially disturbing consequences. It practically canonizes the isolated individual’s decision to judge laws, find them wanting, and justify disobeying them. This undermines the coherence of Catholic teaching. It makes an unjustified exception to a Catholic’s responsibility to obey legitimate laws, suggesting an anthropology that asserts that the only dignity at stake is the individual’s. This marks a departure from Catholic tradition, which accords dignity to the valid expression of a collective community will embodied in duly adopted laws. 

When churchmen speak about the human dignity of migrants, they are drawing attention to an important principle, one that rightly governs law enforcement’s treatment of any person who is suspected of breaking the law. But it is baffling to think that the mere assertion of the human dignity of an individual can serve as justification in practice for ignoring immigration law. Does “dignity” immunize somebody against enforcement of a valid law? Does “dignity” nullify a state’s right to enforce a valid law against a violator? 

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David Roseberry (The Anglican Substack): Murder in the Cathedral: The Last Gasp of a Church Trying to Be the World—A Church Killing Its Own Soul

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An excellent piece from Father Roseberry with which I totally agree. What is happening in the Church of England is what has happened in the Episcopal Church and other mainline Protestant Churches in the West. It is both maddening and heartbreaking to watch. Lord, have mercy on your Church. Spare her from unbelief and false teachers. May none who legitimately bear your name ever be ashamed of the gospel (Romans 1.16). Raise up for us faithful leaders, especially bishops, who are bold in the Faith and able to teach it to those whom you call.

For those with ears to hear, listen and understand.

It’s been a rough week for the Church of England.

First came the announcement of a new Archbishop of Canterbury—a decision that breaks with two thousand years of Christian tradition. Then came the photos from Canterbury Cathedral itself: graffiti splashed across the pillars and walls of that great and ancient cathedral.

Note: Canterbury isn’t just another cathedral. It’s where the story began. It is the cradle of English Christianity. The seat of the Gospel on British soil since 597, when Augustine came from Rome to preach Christ to the Anglo-Saxons. 1From that moment on, Canterbury became the spiritual heart of a nation. Kings were crowned there. Martyrs bled there. Pilgrims walked for days to pray there.

Every Anglican church in the world can trace its roots back to that mission. That’s what makes this so serious. When Canterbury loses her sense of the sacred, something profound—and ancient—is being lost with her.

Put these headlines together, and you see an embarrassing and tragic problem. The Church isn’t being murdered by outsiders. She’s doing herself in. This is not vandalism or persecution. It’s suicide.

Every time we trade holiness for popularity, or beauty for relevance, a little more of the Church’s purpose falls from view. The Church will never die, but a congregation can. A denomination will. And the Church of England had better wake up and realize that antics such as these are not just silly—they are harmful to its mission.

The Church is harming itself—self-vandalizing. That’s the real murder in the cathedral.

The Cathedral as Billboard

The Dean calls it art—an installation called Hear Us. Vinyl graffiti stickers, plastered on medieval stone, meant to look like spray paint from a subway tunnel. Supposedly, it’s meant to make people “think.”

I’ve seen the photos. Some graffiti artists are true to their art form—bold, illegal, shocking by what it says and where it says it. But the shock value here is only in where it’s plastered.

And when was the last time you saw graffiti that had been carefully sourced? Typed in a font made to look like graffiti—the “real thing”—then scanned at the nearest FastSigns in Canterbury and neatly applied on the pillars and staircases. Stick and peel.

One observer put it plainly:

“You don’t take a sacred site like Canterbury Cathedral—one of the oldest and most culturally significant buildings in England—and turn it into a billboard for a temporary art project. This isn’t engaging with the community. It’s a blatant disregard for the sanctity of a space that should be treated with the utmost reverence.”

And that’s exactly the point. We’ve stopped believing that the sacred is sacred. We’ve convinced ourselves that to reach the world, we must become like the world—even in our sanctuaries.

Another voice on X said it perfectly:

“Every line of this ‘installation’—‘Are you there?’ ‘Do you regret your creation?’—reveals the modern clergy’s nervous breakdown. The faith that once proclaimed truth now questions itself in neon letters. The cathedral hasn’t been vandalized by outsiders; it’s vandalized itself from within, trading reverence for relevance and beauty for gimmickry.”

Even our own Vice-President, J. D. Vance, weighed in:

“It is weird to me that these people don’t see the irony of honoring ‘marginalized communities’ by making a beautiful historical building really ugly.”

Chasing Relevance

There’s a mini-revival of spiritual things happening in England. The culture is asking the kind of questions the Church has the answers to.

But the Church of England is pretending it doesn’t know.
It’s feigning dumb.
Acting mute.
Trying not to sound self-assured, as if questions are always better than answers.

This impulse—to make faith “relatable”—has infected churches for decades. It sounds noble: We want to reach people where they are. But in practice, it becomes a slow death.

I learned this early in ministry. In seminary, the question was always, How can I make the Gospel relevant to modern life? It sounds harmless enough. But once you make relevance your goal, you’ll bend anything to achieve it.

You’ll dress up the message, sand off the edges, trade truth for tone. And little by little, you start to lose the very thing you meant to share.

It’s not murder with a knife. It’s murder by compromise—a slow, smiling suffocation of the sacred.

The Gospel Doesn’t Need Makeup

But the Gospel doesn’t need to be dressed up. The Holy Spirit is already at work in the world. He stirs hearts, awakens hunger, and draws people to Christ. Our job is not to sell Jesus, but to show him.

Not to lure, but to present Him to the world.

“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” That’s enough. That sentence could fill a cathedral all by itself. The Gospel is inherently beautiful, inherently magnetic.

It doesn’t need graffiti to make it interesting.

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Jonathon Van Maren (FT): As Long as You’re Living

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A compelling and thought-provoking article with which I wholeheartedly agree. Our lives and our bodies are not ours to do with as we please, contrary to popular belief. Our lives and bodies are God’s because he has purchased them with the Blood of his dearly beloved Son, Jesus Christ to save us from the power and inevitable results of our sin—our eternal destruction. For those with ears to hear, listen and understand.

I first heard Robert Munsch in second grade. Our teacher read his 1986 classic Love You Forever to our class, and like almost everyone who heard the story as a child and read it to his or her own children years later, the cadences of the mother’s beautiful lullaby stayed with me: “I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, as long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.”

I had to grow up to grasp the beauty of the book’s ending. The boy, now a man and a father, cradles his frail, ailing mother, and sings the lullaby back to her as her own voice breaks and fades, changing the last line by two words: “As long as you’re living, my mommy you’ll be.” When he was a baby, a boy, and a teen, his mother covered his vulnerabilities with unconditional love. Now, as she’s dying, it’s his turn to gather her into his arms. 

That last phrase—“as long as you’re living”—took on a heartbreaking significance with the news that Munsch, who lives in Canada, has been approved for euthanasia (referred to by the Orwellian euphemism “medical aid in dying,” or MAID). According to his daughter Julie, Munsch first mentioned that he was planning to die by euthanasia in a 2021 interview with the CBC after being diagnosed with dementia, but the decision made headlines when Munsch discussed his choice in an interview with the New York Times published on September 14.

The eighty-year-old author told the Times that his memory and creative processes are declining. “I can feel it going further and further away,” he said. This, as well as witnessing his brother’s death from Lou Gehrig’s disease, prompted him to apply for euthanasia. “Hello, Doc—come kill me!” he joked. “How much time do I have? Fifteen seconds!” Munsch added that his death has not yet been scheduled, but that by law he must be able to consent just prior to the lethal injection that will kill him.

“I have to pick the moment when I can still ask for it,” he told the Times. The news coverage of the interview prompted his daughter to post a clarifying statement online: “My father IS NOT DYING!!!” she wrote. “Thanks to everyone and their well wishes, however, my father’s choice to use MAID was in fact made 5 years ago. . . . My dad is doing well but of course with a degenerative disease it can begin to progress quickly at any point.”

The public interest in Munsch’s decision to opt for euthanasia, of course, is because he is one of the most famous children’s authors in the world. Munsch, an American by birth who moved to Canada in 1975, has sold more than 30 million copies of his over seventy books. For countless children, Munsch was—and is—a fixture; he is the most stolen author at the Toronto Public Library. Now, if he decides to go through with his decision, the name “Robert Munsch” will forever be tied to Canada’s euthanasia regime, and he will join the more than 60,000 Canadians who have already been legally killed.

For advocates of euthanasia and assisted suicide, Munsch’s choice is a triumph for autonomy. But it is much more than that. Munsch is making a very public value judgment. A life with dementia, he believes, is a life not worth living. Indeed, he said that he is worried about waiting too long to take the plunge into eternity because, as he told his wife Ann, if he can no longer legally consent, “you’re stuck with me being a lump.”

The description made me almost physically recoil. I love someone who suffers from dementia and treasure every moment I have with her. People suffering from dementia are not “lumps,” as Munsch says—and I hope his loved ones have made that very clear to him. Perhaps they have. But Munsch does not need their permission to die—he only needs permission from the state. In Canada, the government decides who is eligible for a state-funded and facilitated lethal injection, and who is not.

Because euthanasia is not, in fact, a “free choice.” It is a choice granted only to some. By passing legislation determining who qualifies, the government has pre-selected those they believe have lives so valuable they are legally barred from suicide, and those with lives so worthless they can be assisted in their demise. In fact, a “provider” can come to your home and dispatch you in the comfort of familiar surroundings. Many like Robert Munsch, fearful after a devastating diagnosis of what the future might hold, become suicidal. The government does not affirm their worth but affirms their suicidal ideation.

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Jonathon Van Maren (TEC): “I Forgive Him”

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A good piece on the extraordinary speech from Charlie Kirk’s widow for those with ears to hear and eyes to see. This is how we witness to our faith in the midst of extraordinary grief, pain, and suffering. Her Lord Jesus is surely proud. Would that our President have used his opportunity to eulogize Mr Kirk likewise, but he just cannot seem to help himself, which is truly unfortunate.

Well done, good and faithful servant.

In her thirty-minute address, Erika Kirk spoke of Charlie Kirk’s Christianity, his passion for reviving the American family, and defended the Christian vision of marriage, urging young men and women to step up and embrace their roles as husbands and wives. Her eulogy, alternatively fierce and sorrowful, gave a glimpse of what a powerhouse she may prove to be at the helm of Turning Point USA, where she succeeds her husband as CEO. Millions of Americans believe Christian marriage to be oppressive, and Christianity to be hateful. 

But when an LGBT extremist murdered one of America’s most prominent public Christians, a man who has been smeared daily since his death by the international press as a vile bigot, the miserable murderer found himself not loathed by the widow of the man he killed—but forgiven. For just a moment, at least, Kirk’s enemies have been stunned into silence. He would have been so proud of her. 

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History of the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross 2025

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exaltation of the holy cross

After the death and resurrection of Christ, both the Jewish and Roman authorities in Jerusalem made efforts to obscure the Holy Sepulchre, Christ’s tomb in the garden near the site of His crucifixion. The earth had been mounded up over the site, and pagan temples had been built on top of it. The Cross on which Christ had died had been hidden (tradition said) by the Jewish authorities somewhere in the vicinity. According to tradition, first mentioned by Saint Cyril of Jerusalem in 348, Saint Helena, nearing the end of her life, decided under divine inspiration to travel to Jerusalem in 326 to excavate the Holy Sepulchre and attempt to locate the True Cross. A Jew by the name of Judas, aware of the tradition concerning the hiding of the Cross, led those excavating the Holy Sepulchre to the spot in which it was hidden. Three crosses were found on the spot. According to one tradition, the inscription Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum (“Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews”) remained attached to the True Cross. According to a more common tradition, however, the inscription was missing, and Saint Helena and Saint Macarius, the bishop of Jerusalem, assuming that one was the True Cross and the other two belonged to the thieves crucified alongside Christ, devised an experiment to determine which was the True Cross. In one version of the latter tradition, the three crosses were taken to a woman who was near death; when she touched the True Cross, she was healed. In another, the body of a dead man was brought to the place where the three crosses were found, and laid upon each cross. The True Cross restored the dead man to life. In celebration of the discovery of the Holy Cross, Constantine ordered the construction of churches at the site of the Holy Sepulchre and on Mount Calvary. Those churches were dedicated on September 13 and 14, 335, and shortly thereafter the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross began to be celebrated on the latter date. The feast slowly spread from Jerusalem to other churches, until, by the year 720, the celebration was universal. In the early seventh century, the Persians conquered Jerusalem, and the Persian king Khosrau II captured the True Cross and took it back to Persia. After Khosrau’s defeat by Emperor Heraclius II, Khosrau’s own son had him assassinated in 628 and returned the True Cross to Heraclius. In 629, Heraclius, having initially taken the True Cross to Constantinople, decided to restore it to Jerusalem. Tradition says that he carried the Cross on his own back, but when he attempted to enter the church on Mount Calvary, a strange force stopped him. Patriarch Zacharias of Jerusalem, seeing the emperor struggling, advised him to take off his royal robes and crown and to dress in a penitential robe instead. As soon as Heraclius took Zacharias’ advice, he was able to carry the True Cross into the church. For some centuries, a second feast, the Invention of the Cross, was celebrated on May 3 in the Roman and Gallican churches, following a tradition that marked that date as the day on which Saint Helena discovered the True Cross. In Jerusalem, however, the finding of the Cross was celebrated from the beginning on September 14.

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Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross 2025

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During the reign of Constantine, first Roman Emperor to profess the Christian faith, his mother Helena went to Israel and there undertook to find the places especially significant to Christians. (She was helped in this by the fact that in their destructions around 135, the Romans had built pagan shrines over many of these sites.) Having located, close together, what she believed to be the sites of the Crucifixion and of the Burial (at locations that modern archaeologists think may be correct), she then had built over them the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which was dedicated on 14 September 335. It has become a day for recognizing the Cross (in a festal atmosphere that would be inappropriate on Good Friday) as a symbol of triumph, as a sign of Christ’s victory over death, and a reminder of His promise, “And when I am lifted up, I will draw all men unto me.” (John 12:32)

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Carl Trueman (FT): Silencing Dissent, Affirming Delusion

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An excellent piece, as usual, from Dr Trueman. For those with ears to hear, listen and understand.

Recent events indicate that the struggle against the dehumanization represented by trans ideology is far from over. True, the U.K. has closed down the Tavistock child gender identity clinic, the U.S. is moving against allowing men to compete in women’s sports, and scientists are starting to free their research in this area from the grip of ideologues and activists. More celebrities are voicing their concerns: Malcolm Gladwell has expressed regret over his silence on a 2022 panel about the issue, claiming this was more the result of cowardice than conviction. No surprise there. How many celebrity advocates for trans rights have read any of the relevant philosophical or medical literature? 

Despite the turning of the tide on the scientific (and to some extent the political) front, the situation with transgenderism is still ambiguous and remains a danger both to its victims—preventing them from obtaining proper care, rather than “affirmation,” for their condition—and to basic freedoms such as that of speech, something that once distinguished Western democracies from regimes such as the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. The evidence is all around us. 

There was the widespread and pitiful use of “preferred pronouns” for the Annunciation Catholic School shooter in Minneapolis (one must respect a man’s identity politics even after he has slaughtered children at worship), the intimidation of a Canadian gender researcher (follow the science, but only to the extent it follows the pronoun preferences of the moment), and last week’s arrest of comedian and writer Graham Linehan as he disembarked in London from a transatlantic flight; Linehan was accused of “inciting violence” after posting anti-trans tweets on X. And yesterday, there was the tragic slaying of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley State University, reportedly while speaking about trans mass killers, though details on the killer and his motivation have yet to emerge. In any event, Kirk faced threats and vitriol from trans activists throughout his career, and gave a number of de-transitioners a platform to speak. Now, his voice has been silenced.

All these indicate that trans misogyny, attacks on women’s safety, and opposition to freedom of speech continue, with the stakes becoming higher all the time. The trans issue is not simply about protecting children from hormonal and genital mutilation. We make a fatal error if we stop once that is achieved. The trans question is about the nature of public life and humanity as a whole. It is no surprise that it has gained traction in Western society at the moment when the very question of what it means to be human is now a source of social confusion rather than cohesion. And it is clear that this dehumanization will be pressed forward by all means necessary, including the use of violence.

The capitulation of the American cultural commentariat on the pronoun issue (helpfully summarized by Lionel Shriver in The Spectator) is no surprise, with the New York Times as always leading the way. And the real chaos that underlies the ostentatious moralism of these opinion writers and pundits has been exposed. When a member of a class that regards itself as innocent victims proves to be a malevolent victimizer, they have no coherent moral calculus by which to frame their response, revealing the amorality of their creed. But while elite pandering to pronoun preferences, even of murderers of children, is sadly no surprise, the response to Kirk’s murder defied belief. Before the barrel of the gun was cold, media pundits were fretting that it might be used by the administration to its own political advantage, and even that to think and speak certain thoughts—presumably including those that do not conform to the progressive denial of reality—will inevitably lead to violence. Blaming the victims is apparently justified in certain circumstances, not to mention making shameful public comments that Kirk’s widow and children might well see. Such people lack any semblance of decency. They have no sense of a shared humanity.

Back in the U.K., the arrest of Linehan for his tweets was another shocking escalation of the culture war. To those unfamiliar with his work, he was the writer of Father Ted, a cleverly absurd Irish comedy that brought the tradition of dark Gaelic humor, exemplified in works such as Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman, to the small screen. He then went on to write The IT Crowd, another hit series. But in recent years, he has become notorious for doing what satirists always used to do: critiquing the smug pieties of the ruling class, in his case the sacred cow of that most absurd rebellion against reality, transgenderism. In this he has stood nearly alone, with so many of his earlier friends and collaborators now exposed not so much as anti-establishment as anti-that-old-establishment-to-which-they-did-not-belong. 

Linehan was arrested by five armed police officers at Heathrow. While U.K. police do not typically carry firearms, they do so at airports. But why five of them, and why in a very public space where they would be armed? Linehan was not on the run or in hiding or brandishing a weapon. Perhaps they feared that Linehan would tell a joke and innocent bystanders would die laughing? More likely they were indulging in the level of theatrical drama they deemed necessary to send a signal to anyone else tempted to behave likewise. The chief of the Metropolitan police might whine about lack of clarity in the law, but the response of his officers was unambiguous: Tweets we don’t like, even from months ago, will be met with overwhelming armed force. 

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Father David Roseberry: ACNA at the Crossroads: A Gentle Critique and a Hopeful Restart

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A good piece on what is becoming the increasingly chaotic situation in the ACNA. For those with ears to hear, listen and understand.

The College of Bishops bears the responsibility to fix this situation. They have to. They are the only ones who can.

Usually, Anglican polity balances power and decision-making with voices and votes from clergy and laypeople. There is no such counter-balance in the ACNA. Yes, the Province meets in session with delegates, but that gathering is not a venue for robust debate or problem-solving. It seems to me that the Province has yet another item stamped “TBD”: how to share power and authority.

Because there is no College of Clergy or Laity, the ownership of fixing these broader important issues—all of them—rests squarely on the bishops. There is no other group with the authority to act.

And to all the congregations and clergy who believe their activism, petitions, and conventions can sway the direction of the Province, I offer my own version of memento mori: “As you were, I once was; as I am, you will be.” Back in the TEC days, I too organized conferences, gathered petition signatures, and led resistance movements. It was to no avail. These are not rector-level issues. The bishops own these problems, and they need our prayers, God’s timing, and our patience to address them.

I remember years ago a phone call with the late Peter Toon, who told me I was being foolish. As the Rector of one of the largest churches in TEC, I felt it a duty to host seminars, conferences, summits, and write articles about “the issues.” And I did.

But he thought I was being over-responsible and, as he said more than once, foolish. “Bishops,” he said, “are like generals—they love to send their lieutenants (Rectors) into battle to draw fire and test the sentiments of the church.” It’s their problem and only they can fix it. They need to own it.

He wasn’t wrong.

The bishops need to act, and in time they will. They know there is no other group that can address these matters.

In the meantime, the rest of us have work to do.

The mission of the ACNA—though oddly absent from our current website—has long been stated as to reach North America with the transforming love of Jesus Christ. I’ll admit, I’ve never had a deep love for the wording. I wish it said more.

But the most important part of that sentence, the single greatest word in it, is the first: Reach. That is our calling. And the world is ripe for it right now.

We could quibble over the phrase “transforming love” or how best to describe “the love of Jesus,” but we can all agree that we are in a moment when we must reach people.

Whatever stream your parish swims in, whatever lifeboat you once climbed into, how is your congregation reaching North America?

That is our job—the job of every parish, priest, and layperson. The bishops must clean up the mess we’re in. And they can. And I trust they will.

But our job is to reach.

Read it all.

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Dave Robertson (CT): The Quiet Judgment on the UK

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Pastor Robertson is right and it makes the heart terribly sad. I fear our country is not far behind. This is not about politics. Something far greater and more ominous is going on. For those with ears to hear, listen and understand.

And so, it has happened. It came – not as a bolt of lightning. Not as a flash of thunder. Not with a mighty roar like an earthquake. It did not come in the form of war, plague and famine. It came as the pale horse whose rider was named Death (Revelation 6:8).

The judgement of God has finally come upon the United Kingdom. Quietly. Silently. Like a thief in the night. It came in the form of an irrational, emotive and Godless parliament who this week voted to permit the killing of babies in the womb up until birth, and has now introduced the National Suicide Service, with its vote to permit assisted suicide. God has given us what we voted for.    

God’s anger against sin can be seen in different ways, and for different purposes. Sometimes he acts directly – to correct and rebuke. Sometimes he gives us our just desserts. But the worst kind of punishment is that inflicted on the UK this past week. His greatest punishment is to give us what we say we want – autonomy. He lets us have it our way. And in the name of choice, we limit life. In the name of freedom we bind the poor, the sick and the disabled. In the name of humanity, we kill humans. 

Paul told the Romans about this wrath of God. It “is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness”. It’s not as if we don’t know about God – he has made it plain to us. We have the glory of his creation – and for centuries we have had the teaching of his word. 

It was that teaching upon which our society was based – with its values of equality, diversity, freedom and justice for all. But now that has all gone. Words are used, but they have no more meaning.  Indeed, such is the perversity of our leaders that if the words have any meaning at all – they are the opposite of what was intended. Life has become death. Freedom has become slavery. And compassion has become cruelty. The truth of God has been exchanged for a lie. We have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity (Romans 1:18-32). 

When the vote for assisted suicide (falsely called ‘assisted dying’ – it is not assisted dying, it is assisted suicide and therefore State-sponsored killing), the pagans rejoiced. Has anyone noticed how the self-styled humanists seem to have such a love affair with death? They danced, chanted and shouted for joy as though they had just won an election. And maybe they had? Their death cult has become triumphant – it is now the official doctrine of the State.

Another evidence of this cult of death and its twin, the cheapness of life, is the growth of what are termed ‘direct cremations’. Twenty per cent of funerals last year in the UK were direct cremations – that is, the body is cremated cheaply with no ceremony and no attendees.  It’s much cheaper than a funeral and it’s a lot less bother.   

Psychologically it allows families to just move on without having to think of the physicality or reality of death. There is no closure. I cannot help but think that such a cheap death reflects a cheap view of life. We are becoming a shallow, sick and sinful society.  Dostoevsky argued those who wanted a truly great heart would experience suffering. We know better. We won’t permit suffering, so we will know nothing but superficiality – and ultimately even greater suffering.  

And do not think that this is the end. It won’t stop there. The humanists have other Christian doctrines – and more humans –  to kill.

Read and weep over it all.

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Veronica Roberts Ogle (PD): Pope Leo: Son of Augustine, Father to the Church

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This woman knows Augustine of Hippo better than most and offers a brilliant analysis of him and the new Pope. For those with ears to hear, listen and understand.

…I am struck by how Augustine’s episcopate offers a rich model for the Holy Father to follow. With access to a wide variety of letters and sermons, we have an excellent picture of how Augustine both taught and led as bishop. Of course, Augustine was a master homilist, effectively rewriting the rules of rhetoric to evangelize his flock. Yet, he was also a conscientious administrator; Augustine took great care to respond to the concerns of his interlocutors, tailoring these responses to the audience in question. This was not simply a matter of getting them on board with an agenda. Rather, it was a matter of pedagogy; Augustine knew that an ongoing witness to truth and love is necessary for shepherding well. For this reason, we often find him responding to hostile reactions by addressing them openly, calling his audience to the charity he strives to inhabit in the process.  

All told, Augustine was remarkably transparent about his decision-making process. Throughout his communications, he blends respect for his flock with the pastoral responsibility of guiding them to greater love. Spelling out the variety of concerns he struggled to reconcile, he teaches them the difficulty of leadership and shows how he understands their needs. He gives them reasons to trust him.  

Because of this transparency, we also have a good picture of what Augustine thought about what it means to be a bishop. As Pope Leo has echoed, Augustine described himself as “a Christian with [his flock], and a bishop for [them]” (Sermon 340). To be a bishop, then, is to serve as one of the faithful: as one still being remade by Christ. For this reason, Augustine’s watchword was always humility; he was convinced that a bishop could not pastor except as one forgiven, confessing his ongoing need for forgiveness.  

Perhaps most importantly for the Holy Father, Augustine modeled his idea of the bishop on the good paterfamilias. If we have a difficult time imagining what this looks like—authority, too often, appears authoritarian—Augustine reminds us that the good father is animated by charity, and that charity is borne out by its fruits. Writing in City of God that this paterfamilias leads out of a desire to serve and not to dominate, Augustine offers us a vivid portrait of the difference between a form of leadership rooted in the libido dominandi and one rooted in a spirit of service. The former takes every opportunity to rule by diktat while the latter takes every care to cultivate a community of love. Augustinian authority, then, is designed to draw out, nurture, and direct the love of persons, helping them to live together in charity. As Pope Leo well knows, Augustine thought deeply about how to do this in writing his rule for monastic communities. Needless to say, the father of any community must continually examine and purify his loves, begging God for the grace to lead with prudence and charity.  

Read it all.

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