Category Archives: Roger’s Weblog

Hilaire Belloc, Saint Patrick and Catholic Ireland

By roger | Published: 16 May 2013

  Life, if it is to be bearable, must be filled with love. By the grace of God, I have been given great loves in my life: Love of my Lord, love of family and love of my religion. But alongside these greatest loves, my life has brought me still further loves, as well. There [...]

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The Holy Mass: Losing Reverence means Losing Credibility …

By roger | Published: 15 May 2013

  Here are further extracts from my upcoming book: While a subtle (or not so subtle!) materialism gains ever-greater credence in the Church, that which is distinctly Catholic becomes sidelined. Nowhere is the situation more grave than in the attitudes towards the Eucharist. Following the Vatican Council, there was a widespread tendency to recast the [...]

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Charity, Community and Caring in Catholic Ireland

By roger | Published: 11 May 2013

    Today, we continue with further manuscript extracts regarding Catholic Ireland from my upcoming book. Last time, I spoke of how, as an American who came to live in the West of Ireland in 2004, I was astonished by the Catholic culture I discovered there. This was true, even while that Catholic culture had [...]

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The New Age Decision: Saying Yes means Saying No …

By roger | Published: 8 May 2013

  Today, I return to an old theme of this website – the New Age movement. As I have said often here, I got caught up in the New Age, when both the movement and myself were very young. Around 1979, age 15, I began to read of the Findhorn community in northern Scotland and [...]

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Becoming a Clone: The Danger of Liberal Catholicism

By roger | Published: 6 May 2013

    For today, just another short extract from my upcoming book – regarding one of the chief concerns of this website: The attitude became prevalent during the 1960s that the ‘problem’ with the Catholic Church was that it was too closed-off or even hostile to modernity in all its tolerance, diversity and pluralism. It [...]

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Encountering Catholic Ireland

By roger | Published: 1 May 2013

    Last time, I promised to post extracts regarding Catholic Ireland from my upcoming book. Now, posting extracts like this is tricky. A lot of context must usually be sacrificed. And so, before launching into Catholic Ireland itself, I provide a little context from the book. We start with a little consideration of both [...]

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Entering Catholic Ireland

By roger | Published: 29 April 2013

  This weblog has been exceptionally personal of late – a little too personal, I feel. Nonetheless, I want to make at least one further exception at this time. Re-entering Ireland has been rocky, due to certain personal troubles. Yet re-entering Ireland has also brought very, very deep joy to our hearts, my family and [...]

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Farewell to Catholic Liverpool …

By roger | Published: 28 March 2013

    Let me start with another little personal notice … That notice is to say this website will be interrupted again perhaps three or four weeks while Kim, myself and our daughter relocate from Liverpool to Ireland. For myself, it will be a profound joy to be living, once again, not only in my [...]

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Returning to Life — and Catholic Ireland

By roger | Published: 2 March 2013

  Some fairly personal notices for the moment. Around Advent last year, weblog entries here abruptly ceased, without explanation. What explanation there is for that fact lies in a crisis in Kim’s and my immediate family which I will say little of here. (Although I will note that while things remain very personally difficult, I [...]

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Secularism and the Feast of Christ the King

By roger | Published: 28 October 2012

  Today is the Feast of Christ the King. And how Kim and I have been blessed today by a high Latin Mass celebrated today by the Institute of Christ the King … Now, it is a truism that the Catholic Church has changed a great deal since Vatican II. It is also a truism [...]

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Father Mateo-Crawley Boevey and the Sacred Heart in the Home and the World

By roger | Published: 14 October 2012

  The Chapel of the Apparitions, Paray-le-Monial.   Last week, we offered extracts from my upcoming book regarding the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This week we simply follow with another extract continuing from before: There are many aspects of the Devotion to the Sacred Heart, but I should like now to focus on the simple fact [...]

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The Suffering of the Heart of Sacred Humanity

By roger | Published: 7 October 2012

    Today, we will just feature some small extracts adapted from the manuscript of my upcoming book in regards to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. *** The Divine Heart was presented to me in a throne of flames, more resplendent than a sun, transparent as crystal, with this adorable wound. And it was surrounded [...]

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On J.R.R. Tolkien and the Magic of Frequent Communion

By roger | Published: 15 September 2012

One of the most gratifying things about this website lies in some of the comments I receive. After my last post here about Holy Communion, where I spoke of frequent Communion, I was very moved indeed to receive the following from Matthew: I know exactly what you mean Roger. After Mass I have often felt [...]

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On the Personal Experience of the Sacraments and the Mystery of the Church

By roger | Published: 9 September 2012

    Last time, I spoke of the crucial need to clarify and illumine the Living Mystery of the Church. For that Mystery is ever-more effaced by the currents of the Modern Age, in the post-Protestant countries most of all. Now this concern also forms one of several, interlocking themes in my upcoming book Cor Jesu [...]

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The Church as Living Organism, the Church as Mystery …

By roger | Published: 8 September 2012

    Recently I stammered here a little about the nature of the Church as a Living Organism. And I tried to draw a distinction between the Protestant emphasis on sermons and the Miracle of the Seven Sacraments: The Protestant sermon imparts beliefs. It teaches. Often very good and beautiful things. But the Organism does something else. [...]

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Steiner, Tomberg, Belloc: Education and Christian Civilisation

By roger | Published: 24 August 2012

  These days most of us grew up with an education provided by the State. And most of us will have been warped by that education. At least, such is the considered view of figures as wildly and radically opposed as Rudolf Steiner and Hilaire Belloc. Wildly opposed: strange, mutually hostile figures meet in this [...]

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Valentin Tomberg, the New Age and the Way of the Heart

By roger | Published: 21 August 2012

Or: An Open Letter on the Salvation of the World     APOLOGIA This Page is in process of a regrettable Deconstruction. The Deconstruction will be ongoing over the days ahead. We will explain the reasons for this regrettable Deconstruction and aim for a Reconstruction with most of this material and indeed expanded on. Until [...]

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“Don’t Vote for a Frenchman and a Catholic”: The Campaign Against Belloc

By roger | Published: 15 August 2012

  Recently at this weblog, we have tried to convey the thinking of Hilaire Belloc –  first looking at his critique of the Modern Mind, before we proceed to other areas of his thought, including those regarding Capitalism, Distributism and his vision of Europe … But today for a change, we thought we would just [...]

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Hilaire Belloc on ‘Dumbing Down’ and Despair

By roger | Published: 14 August 2012

‘Dumbing-down’ … It is a popular construction of modern English (?) that no doubt the Oxford-educated Belloc would have found hideous. Nonetheless, Belloc was a prophet and visionary in so many ways – not the least, in that which regards what we now call ‘dumbing down’. Here we continue from last time, with Belloc speaking [...]

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Hilaire Belloc on the Supreme Confidence of the Modern Mind

By roger | Published: 12 August 2012

Recently I observed that without even knowing it, I had been fumbling in the footsteps of a giant: Hilaire Belloc. This is to say that many of the themes of this website are themes that Belloc – as I see now! – was elaborating a century ago. There are many such themes that I will [...]

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