There’s Something About Andy 2024 is upon us, and I don’t mean five weeks from now—I mean this weekend. The Catholic liturgical year begins on the First Sunday of Advent (which puts it about a month ahead of the civic new year). Christmas commemorates the terrestrial beginning of the life of Christ, and thus of the Church in “embryonic” form; the ritual year accordingly begins with the preparation for this solemnity, which is the season of Advent. Unless you’re in... Read more

Note on the Scripture Reviewing my first post of this type, I decided it was probably kind of bonkers to offer four translations of the gospel text; no one is likely to use that many, nor to get very much out of the differences even if they do. I’ve therefore decided to reduce it to two: the RSV-CE (used by the Ordinariate) and my own. I dropped the NAB and the King James (though it is my sentimental favorite) on... Read more

A Collect or Prayer for All Conditions of Men O God, the Creator and Preserver of all mankind, we humbly beseech thee for all sorts1 and conditions of men; that thou wouldst be pleased to make thy ways known unto them, thy saving health2 unto all nations. More especially we pray for the good estate of the Catholick3 Church; that it may be so guided and governed by thy good Spirit that all who profess and call themselves Christians may... Read more

Proem In this post, I’m experimenting with taking Mudblood Catholic in a new direction. I’ve decided to try this for a couple reasons. The first is that, to be honest, writing on the political and cultural aspects of Catholicism has become tiring and discouraging. I don’t know that I’m persuading anybody who doesn’t already agree with me of anything; I’m not sure either that I’m affording anybody who does share my views any encouragement or help. This has made writing... Read more

This topic is kind of involved, and starting in midstream to boot. If you haven’t already, I recommend reading the first and second posts in this series before starting on this one. … Oops Before I proceed, I need to make a pretty substantial correction. In my post on the two-source hypothesis, I went over the background of the proposed Q document. Several days ago, I saw a comment from someone saying that I was wrong—Q was not supposed to... Read more

I. I’m continuing work on my next Gospel sources post. For those who want something a little more on the professional scholarly side, I was inspired partly by Anglican Bishop John A. T. Robinson’s book Redating the New Testament. It was published in 1976—more or less the zenith of the influence of mainline Christian liberal theology, and Robinson did not have a generally conservative reputation as a churchman. Nonetheless, Redating the New Testament makes the serious case that the entirety... Read more

If you missed the setup, it’s pretty important, so I advise going back and reading it. Why Q? First of all, there’s no reason to postulate Q in the first place. If I’m brought up on some important fact I missed about this, I will of course edit the above remark. (The image stays.) This is not to say that there wasn’t a body of sayings of Jesus that were recognized as genuine, and from which Christian authors both orthodox... Read more

I Looked, And Behold, a Disk Horse I’ve been thinking for a while about the authorship of the Gospels. The more I think about it, the more it seems like the two-source hypothesis (the current scholarly near-consensus on the topic) is dumb and bad, and that the Augustinian hypothesis (the view that prevailed among the Church Fathers, and which St. Augustine expounded in The Harmony of the Gospels1) is smart and good. I’m therefore going to court scholarly ire by... Read more

CONTENT WARNING This post deals with pastoral and other forms of abuse, and contains some discussion of pedophilia; due to the nature of the topic, it has not been possible to mark out those sections of the post more particularly. Please read and share only with extreme caution. Nothing Fails Like It I said in my last that the Catholic Church in the US has a bad case of corrupted values. Grouchy Catholics love saying this, semper, ubique, et ab... Read more

But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of John. And the Lord said, “Whereunto then shall I liken the men of this generation? and to what are they like? They are like unto children sitting in the marketplace, and calling one to another, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you, and ye have not wept. For John the Baptist came neither eating... Read more