Inaugural Post

My first post here, hope everything goes well!

This is meant to be a blog for me to put my thoughts out there on a few issues, the biggest one being Catholicism and the Christian faith. To that end, theology, religion, and philosophy will be big here, but so will politics, culture, art, and whatever else I decide to talk about.

One of the big stories in the news is the visit of the Saudi king to His Holiness Benedict XVI. In terms of practical solutions, I'm not sure what will come of this, if anything. But what it does do nicely is disprove a lot of what the Pope's naysayers whine about; after all, many of them are still whining about his quotation of Manuel II Palaiologos in regards to the contributions of Mohammed to history. His Holiness appears to have left these folks in the dust; not only did his visit to Turkey turn out quite successfully, he managed to get the Saudi king to visit him and it sounds like he may even be able to arrange a visit to the Patriarchate of Moscow, a dream of his august predecessor John Paul the Great. And the increased co-operation between the Roman Church and the Greek Churches is also heartening; Chrysostomos II, the Archbishop of the Cypriot Church has been very positive in this regard.

And on top of this, the rift in the Episcopal Church USA appears to be widening almost daily, with many of the more traditional Episcopalians now looking towards Rome. I do feel somewhat bad about this; it is heartbreaking to good Anglicans to see their church being so violently torn up. But many are beginning to realize that the schismatic attitude is ultimately self-defeating; one can break away again and again until the church is so fragmented that it's not even recognizable. And for all the problems faced by modern Catholicism, this isn't one of them, as there will always be Papal authority and the Magisterium to fall back on.

Anywho, tomorrow is the Feast of the Dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran, one of the four Roman basilicas, so that will be fun.