Last month, a reader ended an unrelated e-mail by asking me, “Is Shameless Popery dying a slow death with Catholic Answers replacing it?” And the answer is: sort of. I write regularly for Catholic Answers Magazine in both its print and online edition (for the latter, you can see all of my articles here: https://www.catholic.com/profile/joe-heschmeyer), and I’m working on a new book (this one on the Eucharist!), so it doesn’t seem either prudent or all that feasible to create new written content for Shameless Popery, too, particularly since the media landscape has changed pretty dramatically si ..read more

President Biden then: “My wife said I was the most socially conservative man she had ever known […] When it comes to issues like abortion, amnesty, and acid, I’m about as liberal as your grandmother. I don’t like the [Roe v. Wade] decision on abortion. I think it went too far. I don’t think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body.” President Biden now: “I’m a practicing Catholic. I’ve supported Roe vs. Wade. And the reason I support Roe vs. Wade is the most rational basis upon which confessional faiths can agree: No one knows precisely when does human life begin ..read more

Six weeks ago, Fr. Gregory Pine asked if I would be interested in reviewing his new book, Prudence: Choose Confidently, Live Boldly. I expressed some interest, and asked for details, and then sort of let the trail go cold. I was just finishing up a writing project, and then launched into a second one (a book I’m working on about the Eucharist – more on that at a later date!). He was good about following up, and then following up again as needed. The truth was, a book on prudence sounded both (a) good and (b) perhaps too niche to be of much interest to people who weren’t me, and ..read more

In response to the leaking of Justice Alito’s draft majority opinion overturning Roe, I wrote a piece for Catholic Link, and did an episode yesterday of Catholic Answers Focus: But since I’ve already started to see a whole series of terrible arguments from pro-choicers in the wake of the decision, I thought I would write something for anyone (but especially pro-choicers) involved in debating this topic. First and foremost, the single most important question in the abortion debate is simply this: is the fetus a human being? Science says “yes.” Now, this isn’t the only important question – it’s ..read more

Once you’re convinced Catholicism is true, is converting really necessary? That’s the question I’m exploring today over at Catholic Answers. After all, converting to Catholicism may damage friendships and family relationships, cause tension within marriages, cost jobs (especially if one is working directly within a non-Catholic church or religious body), and in the most extreme cases around the world, potentially endanger life and limb. To all of this, the Church’s response might seem harsh: do it anyways. As the Second Vatican Council says, In explicit terms [Jesus] himself affirmed the nec ..read more

How should we interpret Sacred Scripture? A lot of Evangelicals will claim that the Bible *must* be understood literally, in the sense of non-metaphorically. The people claiming this don’t really believe this – simply open up John 6 and see how quickly they wave away Jesus’ words about the Eucharist as a mere “symbol” – but it’s a common enough claim that a lot of people assume that the Bible must teach it somewhere. There is a sense in which the Bible should be read “literally” (using the older sense of the word literal), but this isn’t it. To give you an example of a particularly poor way o ..read more

The “Year of St. Joseph” just ended, but if you’re still wanting to dig deeper in the life of St. Joseph… or maybe make up for not doing as much as you wish you had during the Year of St. Joseph… check out the latest episode of Catholic Answers Focus: For more on this, I’ve written a book on St. Joseph that you may find helpful as well. (Psst… if you’ve already read the book, please rate and review it on Amazon ..read more

Nadia Bolz-Weber, a Lutheran theologian, pastor and author, knows how to make waves on the Internet. One of her latest comments was about this past Sunday’s feast of Christ the King (the full name of which is “the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe”): Pope Pius XI established Christ the King Sunday in 1925 to counter what he regarded as the destructive forces of facism and the totalitarian claims of Nazi ideologies. I know I am 4 days early, but Happy Antifa Sunday, everyone. — Nadia Bolz-Weber (@Sarcasticluther) November 17, 2021 So is Bolz-Weber just trolling, or is t ..read more

I recently saw someone share this tweet from Josh Buice, the founder of G3 Ministries: We can be certain that Luther, Calvin, Knox, Tyndale and other figures of the Reformation were not making decisions about defending the faith by calculating their career advancement and protecting their platform. Faithful men stand up. Faithful men speak up. — ???? ????? (@JoshBuice) October 28, 2021 The sentiment he’s getting at is great, but he could hardly have chosen worse examples: one reason Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Knox avoided dying for their beliefs is that they showed a remarkable ab ..read more

As of today, I have a brand-new book out, called The Early Church was the Catholic Church. As the subtitle says, it looks as “the Catholic Witness of the Fathers in Christianity’s First Two Centuries.” Here’s how I begin the book: ANY CRITIQUE of Catholic teaching falls into one of two categories: either Catholics are getting blamed for believing what Jesus taught, or they’re getting blamed for straying from what Jesus taught. If you’re looking for ways to answer the first kind of argument (that Catholics shouldn’t be so faithful to Jesus), there are a lot of good books for you, but this one ..read more