Blog Posts

The Catholic-Protestant Divide: A Path to Unity

Jan 23rd, 2010 | By | Category: Blog Posts

The second winning essay in our essay contest is titled, “The Catholic-Protestant Divide: A Path to Unity,” written by Dave Wade. Dave is a lifelong Catholic, a catechist on the RCIA-ACI team and musician at St. Cecelia Catholic Church in Clearwater, Florida. He is also the Catholic Mentor/Moderator @ theCircle.org. Dave is planning to enter […]



St. Francis De Sales, Apostle to the Calvinists

Jan 22nd, 2010 | By | Category: Blog Posts

Few figures loom as large in the history of Calvinism, and yet are at the same time so unknown by Calvinists, as St. Francis De Sales. St. Francis, born in 1567 to a wealthy family, led an interesting life, the details of which are too great to expound here, but I recommend the Catholic Encyclopedia […]



Once Upon a Thousand Years

Jan 21st, 2010 | By | Category: Blog Posts

Towards the end of Leo Tolstoy’s literary masterpiece, Anna Karenina, we find Konstantin Levin, the book’s male protagonist, grasping his way towards an explicit faith in God. Along the way, Levin considers the faith of the Church, but finds himself unable to fully accept her testimony to divine truth:



The Authority of Divine Love

Jan 20th, 2010 | By | Category: Blog Posts

A few weeks ago we announced an essay contest for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The essays were to answer the following question: “What is it, most fundamentally, that still divides Catholics and Protestants?” They were to locate the fundamental disagreement underlying the other Catholic-Protestant disagreements, explain why it is fundamental, and show […]



Unity in the Ante-Nicene Church

Jan 19th, 2010 | By | Category: Blog Posts

With a title like this, the reader might initially expect a long list of patristic quotes, but I’ll take a different route. In fact, I intend to write this without quoting the fathers even once. Let’s see if I can withstand the temptation. The ante-Nicene Church was, from a political perspective, an illegal network that […]



Saint Paul on the Unity of the Catholic Church (An Argument Against the Terms “Lutheran” and “Calvinist”)

Jan 18th, 2010 | By | Category: Blog Posts

Non-Catholics (and yes, even the Eastern Orthodox) do not enjoy the ecclesial unity Saint Paul prescribed for the Church of Jesus Christ. Saint Paul is resolute in his conviction that the Church of Christ must be one. Most of his epistles specifically speak against disunity within the Church. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians seems […]



Baptism Now Saves You: Some (More) Prolegomena

Jan 6th, 2010 | By | Category: Blog Posts

The Catholic Church dogmatically affirms that Sacred Scripture indeed teaches the salvific efficacy of baptism, where “baptism” refers to the sacrament in which a person is washed with water in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and “salvation” refers to the bestowal of gifts whereby a person […]



Essay Contest for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

Jan 2nd, 2010 | By | Category: Blog Posts

The Church Unity Octave (eight days), also called the “Week of prayer for Christian unity” begins on January 18. This will be the 102 annual week of prayer for Christian unity. January 18th was originally chosen as the first day of the Octave because it was one of the two feast days of the Chair […]



Tolkien on Death and Eucatastrophe (Commemoration of the Holy Innocents)

Dec 28th, 2009 | By | Category: Blog Posts

Every story features the action of a protagonist who is hindered by an antagonist. This makes for an essential conflict, the development and resolution of which constitutes the basic structure of the story. Every human life is very much a story. Each person is the protagonist, and the enemy is death.



Advent and the Ascension

Dec 20th, 2009 | By | Category: Blog Posts

As we move ever closer to the celebration of the coming of our Lord on Christmas, it is helpful for us to reflect a bit on what this coming means for you and me, what this means for us! What does the season of Advent have to do with the Ascension of our Lord Jesus […]