Collected here are articles and reviews that have appeared in print, as well as a presentation of my books. There are a few interviews and some sound material, notably my reading of the Gospels in Greek, a project that remains work in progress.
It has ever been the case that true reforms in the Church have set out from Catholic teaching founded on divine Revelation and authentic Tradition, to defend it, expound it, and translate it credibly into lived life — not from capitulation to the Zeitgeist. How fickle the Zeigeist is, is something we verify on a daily basis.
Continue reading For too long we have lived as if prosperity, peace, and good order were necessary consequences of an irresistible evolution - this is not the case. We are fragile beings living in a fragile world, a world in need of salvation.
Continue reading The older I get, the more I see the importance of reading things over again. The books that really nurture us are books we ourselves should nurture.
Continue reading The government's proposal does not only regard pragmatic action in emergencies of public health. It regards the disproportionate intervention of state power in the lives of citizens.
Continue reading Rarely has literature been at the same time so embodied and so sublime. One thinks of that essential line from the Letter to the Ephesians - ‘anything exposed to the light becomes light’.
Continue reading A conversation with Professor Sarah Coakley about my book 'Entering the Twofold Mystery', touching on a number of key themes.
Continue reading After decades of determined inculturation, the time has come to exculturate ourselves somewhat, to be realigned round faith’s vertical axis, to recover our sense of the timeless, to seek God’s will in listening silence, to let our lives be refashioned by grace — why, to be converted.
Continue reading In a secular world, forgiveness seems absurd. Detached from the narrative that gives forgiveness meaning and allows it to inform shared experience, we revert to pre-Mosaic categories, that is, to the logic of Lamech - ‘If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold.
Continue reading In a time when much academic writing is rushed, polished off quickly to meet the requirements of research assessments, it is good to encounter a text of patient gestation, in which words are weighed and in which, above all, the Word who is the object, not only of enquiry but of desire, is heard.
Continue reading This book lists symptoms of unhealth in the manner of the Desert Fathers, who chartered the vagaries of corrupted passions and showed where, unchecked, they lead. The result is a phenomenology of abuse: a sobering, terrifying, helpful account.
Continue reading What is beautiful does not force itself upon us. It is incompatible with violence (an essay written in Norwegian).
Continue reading On Christmas Day the papers' first page ought to carry a sensational announcement in massive, bold typescript: 'God has become man!'
Continue reading What matters is to be where you are right now, to be as faithful as possible, doing what you have to do as credibly as possible. Then you find that the invisible things can bear fruit in an ample sphere whereas the visible things turn out to be a bit banal.
Continue reading To a large extent, public discourse is a shouting match, even within the Church, wouldn’t you say? I believe, then, in listening out for whispered words from without and from within, for I desire to notice them, whether I find myself alone or in company.
Continue reading A conversation about Norwegian Catholicism, tradition and continuity, the signs of the times, perseverance in faith, true freedom and fresh fish from the Fjord.
Continue reading Ours is a time of navel-gazing, based on the assumption that the the world revolves around us. It is a Copernican revolution of sorts, but not an especially luminous one.
Continue reading Our faith cannot be reduced to a model for a perfect society of justice and peace, to a catalogue of cogent answers to life’s hard questions: our faith is about life transformed in Christ, redeemed from the reign of sin, whose wages is death, life illumined by the hope of resurrection.
Continue reading A conversation with Eivor Oftestad and Aase Cathrine Myrtveit about how Nietzsche's intuition regarding the 'death of god' is seeping into Western consciousness, about the abuse crisis, about human dignity, and about the courage to be seen as ridiculous.
Continue reading A human being reaches maturity by finding a proper place, subjectively, among objective norms; sometimes perhaps by assuming positions that go against the grain of norms. But the cancellation of norms will not resolve the experience of a conflict of identity.
Continue reading Si pudiéramos tan sólo darnos cuenta de la libertad de que disponemos para elegir cuál es nuestra visión del mundo. Si fuéramos conscientes de que nadie tiene por qué ser el prisionero de una determinada cosmovisión o mentalidad, ni siquiera de nuestro propio pasado, por muy traumático y difícil que haya sido: Cultivar la memoria del bien constituye una especie de ascesis, un ejercicio imprescindible.
Continue reading Erik Varden har fortsatt en opplevelse av at Norge er både hjemland og utland, og akkurat det, sier han, er ikke så dumt når man har ansvar for noe så multikulturelt som katolske menigheter i Norge. Det har også noe med det å være kristen å gjøre: Vårt hjemland er i Himmelen.
Continue reading Trofasthet koster. Det finnes ingen snarvei til menneskelig og kristen modenhet, om vi er gifte eller enslige, prester, legfolk, munker eller nonner.
Continue reading Some might ask: Doesn’t a bishop have better things to do than to record the Gospels in Greek? I would answer, without a moment’s hesitation: No!
Continue reading Let us entrust ourselves to God’s freeing possession. Let us run the risk of freedom.
Continue reading