Over the weekend while Harold Camping was hiding out after his failed prediction that the Rapture would occur on Saturday, May 21st, I was talking to a friend about what Camping was likely to do next.

I expressed the hope that Camping would make a public statement acknowledging his error and cease making end time predictions. I also expressed the fervent hope that Camping and his followers would not bring on their own personal end of the world through a suicide pact (a la Heaven’s Gate, the Order of the Solar Temple, and Jim Jones’ People’s Temple). I didn’t think that the probable outcome in this situation, though. Instead, I said that the most likely thing would be a modification of...READ MORE

A story caught my eye on Catholic News Agency, according to which:

Archbishop Gregory Aymond of New Orleans said that a local Catholic school must permanently ban corporal punishment for student misbehavior, even though many parents and alumni support the practice. ...

Since 1951 teachers and administrators at the historically black all-boys school have used an 18-inch-long wooden paddle, known as “the board of education,” to administer punishment to students for tardiness, sloppy dress or other minor infractions.

However, Archbishop Aymond and Josephite superior general Fr. Edward Chiffriller, who heads the school’s board of trustees, ordered an end to the practice.

A town hall meeting...READ MORE

Yes! It’s true! A major supernatural event will be occurring *this* Saturday, May 21, 2011!

I’m *not* kidding!

Harold Camping—president of the Protestant radio outreach known as Family Radio—has been predicting for some time that the long-awaited Rapture will occur on May 21st of this year.

Of course, he’s made similar predictions before. He famously got his followers worked up back in 1994 about that being the year the world would end (or something) and, well ... y’know.

But this time is different!

There really *is* a major supernatural event occurring this Saturday!

That doesn’t necessarily mean that the reasoning Camping uses to arrive at his conclusion is sound. In fact, it’s not....READ MORE

Over on Facebook, where you can friend me if you like, one of the things I regularly do is post pictures of various low-carb recipes, because I’m on a low-carb diet and all. The recipes I’m showing pictures of are for a low-carb cookbook that my FB friends convinced me to work on. These are the test recipes.

I also occasionally post video recipes, and one I recently did was for a special Italian dish that is made for Easter. It goes by a number of Italian names, but in English it’s often called “Italian Easter Pie.”

There are may ways of making it, but I based this recipe off of one that was taught to me by a family of friends in which the mother is of Italian American descent.

It really...READ MORE

It’s been a day, and some more details have become clear about the killing of Osama bin Laden. I thought I’d add a few more thoughts—some of which I didn’t have time to blog yesterday and some of which are in response to what various commenters have posted.

First, was bin Laden chronically stupid or what?

You are the most wanted man in the world, with the world’s most powerful nation on your tail. Okay, so maybe living in a cave isn’t so fun, especially if you have health conditions like Osama was reported to have. And then there are all those pesky predator drones trying to shoot at you out in the hills, so getting under some kind of permanent cover in a more populated area makes sense,...READ MORE

So it has been announced that Osama bin Laden is dead.

Good.

The twisted, evil mastermind responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent human beings has been shuffled off this mortal coil.

This provides a measure of justice. Not full justice. That’s in God’s hands. But some justice.

Of course, Our Lord’s command to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us still applies. We must hope that Osama bin Laden repented at the last second, or that he had been crazy for years and not responsible for his actions, or that God might provide for his salvation in some other way.

And we must remember that Christ himself died to make salvation possible for all men, Osama bin Laden...READ MORE

Some time ago I did a post (possibly more than one) dealing with the subject of women’s headcoverings at Mass—a practice that was required by the 1917 Code of Canon Law but that then fell into desuetude after the Second Vatican Council and was abolished by the release of the 1983 Code of Canon Law.

I have no problem with women wearing head coverings. In fact, I’m rather partial to the practice, and I fully support any woman’s right to wear one.

But I’m not going to falsify what the law requires concerning them.

My post was occasioned by queries I got from time to time about whether the former practice of women wearing some form of headcovering at Mass is still required.

Some of these...READ MORE

There has been some talk recently about a new book by Cambridge University professor Colin Humphreys that proposes the Last Supper was held on Wednesday of Holy Week (GET IT HERE), rather than on Thursday as it has been traditionally commemorated. I haven’t had a chance to review his arguments yet, but there is room for discussion here. In fact, in his recent, second volume of Jesus of Nazareth (GET IT HERE!), Pope Benedict wrestles with the subject of the Last Supper without coming to a definite conclusion.

Regardless of when precisely the Last Supper took place in Holy Week, one thing both the Cambridge professor and the pontiff are agreed upon is that the Crucifixion took place on...READ MORE