Should I want everyone to become Orthodox?

I recently ran across on Facebook a group named “Catholic & Orthodox: Steps Towards a Reunited Church,” which naturally interested me since I am, among other things, keen to understand how Orthodoxy compares and relates with Rome and vice versa. It’s always hard to figure out exactly what the character of these groups is at first blush, even from reading their official…

“Giving Up Something” for Lent

The original version of this post from February of 2012 first appeared on the Roads From Emmaus weblog. It is also available as an audio recording at Ancient Faith Radio. In February of 2012, Mark Galli posted an article entitled Giving Up Self-Discipline for Lent which is actually a fairly fascinating look into what Lenten ascetical effort looks like from within a…

Fr. Richard Rene on “God Without Church?”

Fr. Richard Rene, pastor, fellow CP author and AFR podcaster, has this weblog post up, God Without Church?: It’s a common reality: people who believe in God without feeling the need to attend church regularly. They even have a name—“Nones”—because of their typical response to surveys asking about their religious affiliation. And those of us who consider Church attendance to be central…

Doctrine matters.

With the obvious exception of ordained seminary professors, if you were to ask most Christian clergy how often they get asked questions about doctrine, they would probably chuckle sardonically at least a little. Some clergy would probably not care about that bit of irony, and they would likely not chuckle. But the chucklers would be chuckling because they know that most Christians…