The Practical Parson

 In recent weeks, there has been a growing obsession with the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X (SSPX), due to the announcement that they will be pursuing the consecration of new bishops for their society in July.   Ever the fraternal, loving, ecumenical, "God wants us all to be together in love" crowd; the mainstream Roman Catholic Hierarchy have taken to staunch denouncements of the society, proclaiming them schismatics, heretics, and worse.  For daring to presume that they have the right to have their own bishops; a number of otherwise intelligent and decent Christian people are quite legitimately threatening the SSPX with the fires of eternal damnation.  The crux of the matter is the breakdown in communications between the society and the prefect for the congregation of the doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Fernandez.  Specifically, it is known that Cardinal Fernandez himself has prevented the SSPX from being able to meet with the Roman Pontiff themselves...

 With the recent election of a Woman to sit in the seat of St. Augustine at Canterbury; the Anglican world is yet again aflame with the half-a-century old debate on women's ordination.  Having written extensively in previous posts on the matter from a theological and philosophical perspective, which are still unconvincing to those most ardent supporters of women's ordination; it would seem a point of futility to argue the point any further.  However a cleric that I have known made the statement recently, that the ordination of men only, was only a "tradition" of the church; and argued that such could be changed by the church.  Unfortunately, this is not only untrue, but it degrades the very heart and essence of the priestly ministry to a position of non-consequence.  If such a thing were indeed true that the church alone created and could change the dignity and nature of the priesthood by popular acclaim, then the promised salvation and ever-abiding presence tha...

 Recently I have been made aware (albeit I was unsurprised) of an event that is set to take place in Canterbury Cathedral in February this year called "90's Silent Disco in the Cathedral".  I'll let you take a moment first to process that title of insanity.  The Cathedrals in England have played host, in recent years, to a number of wacky, bizarre, and often outright blasphemous art and social exhibits that express (contrary to the bishop's and chapter's heavenly expectations) just how far removed from God and reality some institutional churches have become since the 1960's.  Where we once held solemn acts of worship of the triune God; we now have women parading about as bishops proclaiming that we need to take down crosses from the church to make Muslims feel more welcome.  Where we once sang our hearts to the Father who created us all; we have art installations praising everything but God.  Where once we had the visible, physical statement of the true fa...

 December 28th and 29th are among the important feast days in the Christmas Season, as they are respectively the feast of the Holy Innocents and St. Thomas Becket (of Canterbury).  The feast of Holy Innocents commemorates the children of Bethlehem who were murdered on the order of king Herod; who was trying to kill the Christ Child in the mix.   The feast of Thomas Becket commemorates the great Archbishop of Canterbury who stood up to a corrupt king of England who demanded ever-increasing power and authority over aspects of human existence he had no right to, namely religion.   Ah, how quickly mankind progresses in its eternal march towards its ultimate demise!  Today our clergy and civic leaders demand that mothers be allowed to murder their own children in the womb because of "women's right to choose".  Even more clergy willingly and whole-heartedly cast aside their sacred duties in favor of legalistic mumbo-jumbo about "protections" under the l...