I have conglomerated these lines from Holy Scripture which help me in times of false-accusations.  You might want to save them to a note app, too: Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.—Mt 5:11-12 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give [...]

The above pic is a statue of Our Lady that remained standing amidst the recent Hawaii fires of 2023. (It was all over social-media, so if you know the original source, I’ll happily give photo-credit.) My favorite line in St. Louis De Montfort’s description of the saints of the final days of the Catholic Church goes like this: “They will have the two-edged sword of the Word of God in their mouths and the bloodstained standard of the Cross on their shoulders. They will carry the crucifix in their right hand and the Rosary in their left, and the holy names of Jesus and Mary on their heart.”—Thunderclouds of Mary, [...]

Except for the Blessed Virgin Mary, I would say that my favorite saint is the Apostle Paul.  Why is that? Blaise Pascal once wrote, "The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing." So, of course not everything can be identified. But here's a few reasons: St. Paul was the "Chosen Channel" and the "Standard Bearer" of the entire Gospel of Love.  He chose to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified (1 Cor 2:2.) Christ Himself chose him to transmit the Gospel over the whole Mediterranean region nearly 2,000 years ago. With Christian-radio being played in my house all during the time growing up, I [...]

Not that anyone has ever challenged me on this, so I don't know why I repeat myself on this, but my donors do not pay for my pilgrimages. When I go on a professionally led-pilgrimage, the other lay pilgrims pay the way of the priest. This is quite common in the Catholic world. But, as always, I do thank you my donors for all your generosity to me for my normal room and board and ministry. We still have some openings for a pilgrimage I will help lead to the Holy Land with Jesse Romero in October 2023. You can find details here. Dr. Taylor Marshall invited me to be [...]

My brother in law, Luke, in an Alaska charter fisherman for four months a year. His boat is seen above. He takes clients to catch salmon and halibut in Southeast Alaska. His wife (my sister) goes up there with their five kids to overlap with him about three of those four months. The rest of the year, they live in Denver (as do I.)  The last time I was up there I was just a newly ordained priest. Luke and I were half-joking and half-serious how much simpler it was when I last visited around 2012. He and my sister had only one daughter. They had not yet had their [...]

Earlier today, some conservative non-traditional Catholics on Twitter got mad at me for pointing out that what Pope John Paul II did in Assisi in 1986 was just as bad (or almost as bad) as the Pachamama event of 2019.  If you doubt the evil of Assisi '86, read this OnePeterFive article.  One paragraph in that article explains one of the most horrendous things that happened in Assisi in 1986: At this meeting, under [Pope John Paul II's] presidency, representatives of many Christian churches, together with an assortment of Hindus, Tibetan lamas, Japanese bonzes, tribal snake worshippers, and animists of all sorts performed their respective rites, some of the less [...]

If I met me, the question I would ask me is:  What do you do all day?  As I said on a recent podcast, the hermit-thing isn't a total farce or lurk.  I keep mornings entirely for prayer and exercise.  Doing the old Divine Office means a few hours of Psalms in Latin every day.  Perhaps because I didn't learn the old Roman Breviary in seminary (for we did the Liturgy of the Hours—something we traditionalists now call the Liturgy of the Minutes—since it is so short!) I didn't carve enough time out of my day at the beginning of my religious life for both several hours of prayer and [...]

When I left diocesan life, but obviously remained a priest, it was time to design a habit. One question I got a few times was "Why don't you just model your habit after one religious order or another?" It's a pretty innocent question, but I would have to explain to people that it would be the equivalent of "stolen valor" in the military. The Franciscan habit is not just a way to look pious or homeless. The Dominican habit is not just a way to look clean or erudite in learning. The Carmelite habit is not just a way to look deep or quiet. All of these habits carry the [...]

In the Spring of 2017, I was on loan to a TLM-parish in the diocese of Houma-Thibodaux, Louisiana. Gibson is in the bayou and I often point out I had alligators as closer geographic neighbors than humans. But I often spent time in New Orleans when I got lonely in the swamp. One day, I was walking near the horse track in New Orleans before Mardi Gras. I think it was the Monday before Mardi Gras, but you have to understand that "Mardi Gras season" in NOLA begins in January, and lasts for months. Now, even the homeless (and the street-people with homes) get tired of seeing certain costumes among [...]