As the successor of blessed Peter, the prince of the apostles, true vicar of Christ, head of the whole church and father and teacher of all Christian people, I have a special authority in the matter of proper comportment in conjugal relations. If anyone says otherwise let him be anathema. The Sacrament of Marriage was meant for a man and a man, or ( Read more... )

On Sunday, Emily and I drove out of DC on Route 50, aka New York Avenue. We intended to find a beach of some sort, but through a serious of coincidences and unexpected turns, we ended up in Annapolis instead.
The first thing we saw in Annapolis (besides the Naval Academy and some stores that were inside houses) was a buzzard eating a squirrel's ( Read more... )

Here’s pope dear ondine ( Read more... )

The Girl from ipanema

keep it tight
have a good night

fabaliscious fabric

To: Mom ( Read more... )

Little Child Plotinus: "I want to go to the movies ( Read more... )

Some notes on my readings about Simon the Magician, early heretic:

According to Alfred Firmin Loisy, Simon Magus was a 'contemporary of Jesus and the first missionaries' whose 'messianic pretentions' qualified him, 'from the Christian point of view', as an Antichrist. Strictly speaking Simon 'never was a heretic in regard to Christianity, for he ( Read more... )

A list of early gnostic Christian leaders and sects, taken from The Birth of the Christian Religion (1933) by Alfred Firmin Loisy, Chapter 9, 'The Gnostic Crisis'.

Simon Magus (Simonians)
Dositheus
Menander
Cerinthus
Satornil (Satornillians)
The Serpant Worshippers
Basilides
Carpocras
Valentinus
Heracleon
Ptolemy
Marcus
Marcion

I've been reading a book called "The Oxford Dictionary of Popes", a book of biographical entries for each Pope from before Popes were called "Popes" right up to the Popes of the very recent past. The entries are chronological, so, myself having begun at the front of the book and proceeded in sequence according to page order, the objects of my ( Read more... )

Most mornings when I wake up, assuming I wake up in the morning, the first thing I think about is a good reason to get out of bed. I lay there going over various aspects of my life in my head until one of them motivates me to get out of bed, usually with the promise of imminent gratification. Today I woke quietly and gently out of a dream in ( Read more... )