Author: Joe Heschmeyer

Answering Your Questions About Papal Resignation

Pope Benedict’s announcement yesterday that he is resigning has taken the world by surprise. In response, I’ve already heard a number of questions, and it seemed wise to create a basic Q&A to clarify any confusion you might have about papal resignation. Q: Can the Pope Resign? A: The first reaction several people expressed to… Continue reading Answering Your Questions About Papal Resignation

Your Heart and Soul are Made for God: Why Settle for Less?

St. Francis de Sales’ Introduction to the Devout Life, which I have been reading lately, arose out of correspondence he had with a woman who was looking for help in living out the life of a Christian amidst the secular world. If anything, the book has become only more valuable since then, as secular culture… Continue reading Your Heart and Soul are Made for God: Why Settle for Less?

How to Establish a Pro-Life Framework

There’s a faulty notion that the abortion issue is inherently religious: that one must be a Christian (or at least possess particular subjective beliefs about when life begins) in order to be against abortion.  In fact, the pro-life view is founded squarely on modern science. I wrote about this a couple weeks ago, regarding the scientific… Continue reading How to Establish a Pro-Life Framework

The Case for Calling Mary “Mother of God”

Modern Protestants often balk at Catholics referring to the Virgin Mary as “the Mother of God.” One Protestant apologetics website argues that “Mary most certainly isn’t the mother of God,” since “God is eternal, Mary was not.”  The author concludes that calling Mary the Mother of God is thus “a serious blasphemy attacking the very… Continue reading The Case for Calling Mary “Mother of God”

The Untold Story of the Ecumenism of the Trenches

This week, in addition to being the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade and the 40th annual March for Life, is also the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. It’s fitting that these two events should overlap, since the pro-life movement seems to have done more to draw together Catholics and Protestants, particularly Evangelicals, than… Continue reading The Untold Story of the Ecumenism of the Trenches

Why March for Life?

For priests, religious, and seminarians, each morning begins the same way, with the praying of the Invitatory Psalm, the opening prayer of the first Hour of the day in the Liturgy of the Hours. Typically, that Psalm is Psalm 95. The version in the Breviary concludes this way: Offering to Molech (1897) Today, listen to… Continue reading Why March for Life?

The Cross, the Church, and the Mystery of Suffering

On the most beautiful things about Catholicism is that it gives meaning to suffering in a way that no other system does. No system explains suffering as well as religion does, no world religion explains it as well as Christianity, and no Christian denomination explains it as well as the Catholic Church does. Within an… Continue reading The Cross, the Church, and the Mystery of Suffering

Science v. Religion on When Life Begins

One of the looming questions in the abortion debate relates to when human life begins.  From a scientific perspective, this question has been solved for centuries, thanks in part to the work of a seventeenth-century Italian scientist by the name of Francesco Redi.  And it’s left the opponents of the scientific view appealing lamely to outdated… Continue reading Science v. Religion on When Life Begins