Saint Gabriel's Newsroom will no longer be producing any new content for the foreseeable future. We appreciate any monetary and spiritual support in the past, please keep up the faith and the works of the Lord. All of the old content will remain online for the time being.

Not long ago I attended a Parish Council meeting. The standard agenda items included review of previous minutes, declining attendance, lack of volunteers, insufficient building funds, fund raising results and maintenance items.

When I was a teenager, I thought nobody was cooler than Hugh Hefner. He was rich. He was famous. He hosted hip celebrity parties. He was a sharp dresser, was articulate, had a great sense of humour, and was tall, dark and handsome. 

It seems that Sodom and Gomorrah are making a come back. God destroyed these cities because of their gross sexual immorality: fornication, homosexuality and, I believe, pedophilia. I use this order because, I think, that’s the progression a society follows towards total depravity.

I was recently told that dogma creates trouble; people just need to be nice to each other, we don't need dogma.

The person who told me this was not Catholic, but I'm not sure it makes a difference in what the statement meant.

I can't speak for other beliefs, but the Catholic Church rarely defines dogma.  One of the things that distinguishes dogmata from doctrines is that a dogma must be divinely revealed.  That is a distinctly limiting factor.  Jimmy Akins reminds us that the term 'dogma' has itself undergone a change.  Prior to 1700, the term was used to describe opinions.  Clearly that meaning has changed.

But we do have dogmata.

For the next while, I am planning articles on liturgical music.

At the end of June, I will be attending the Sacred Music Colloquium, this year being held in Indianapolis, Indiana.

I am writing this during the Ascension Triduum.  You didn't know about that one?

I’ve always believed that there is something more to sex than just sex. Human sex is physical, mental and spiritual because people are physical, mental and spiritual. I researched the topic and one of the things I discovered is that occultists encourage deviant sexual behaviour as much as conservative Christians shun it.

Although, you won’t hear many sermons condemning the practice, the Catholic Church still officially teaches that masturbation is sinful. In spite of all the pro-masturbation propaganda in our culture, "self abuse" is one of the most frequently confessed sins in the confessional.