It is something the English haven’t witnessed on these shores for more than 500 years. The sight of long queues outside churches, convents and cathedrals to see a wooden box containing the bones of a saint – in this case St Thérèse of Lisieux, a 19th-century French nun.

As pilgrims have waited in line at some of the venues on Thérèse’s “tour”, some have been sold roses and holy candles to place near the relics. Others have been entertained by giant screens showing sugary accounts of the saint, who died young in 1897 of intestinal tuberculosis, and of her “little way” of finding spirituality through small, everyday things. The whole spectacle has given a glimpse of what Catholic England might have been like had the Reformation never happened.

Fr Barron provides a succint commentary on the standard heresies of our times. You'll have heard these spouted in slightly differing forms by many; here's a concise and clear response.

The second part is after the jump.

For part two, see below the jump.

Fr Tim Finigan of the Hermeneutic of Continuity reflects on Pope Benedict's recent encyclical: 

The Holy Father’s new encyclical Caritas in Veritate is typical of his writing generally. Each individual sentence is perfectly lucid and yet taken as a whole it is a dense read, demanding full attention and often requiring the reader to go back again to take in the full impact of the powerful ideas expounded. My personal reaction after finishing it was that this is a superb exposition of the Church’s social teaching, tailored expertly to our present time. As well as being magisterial in the theological sense, it is a fine example of the work of our “papa professore”.

Beginning in a way that reflects the best quality of the Holy Father’s German academic background, an orderly and logical approach to complex topics, the introduction offers an exposition of the mutual relationship between charity and truth, explaining that truth must be sought and expressed within the “economy” of charity but that charity in its turn must be “understood, confirmed and practised in the light of truth” (n.2) because without truth, charity is an empty shell. A key principle is the nature of love itself which, almost in passing, Pope Benedict reminds us, is to desire the good of the other (n.7)