Charles Coulombe, Author at Catholic Herald

Charles Coulombe

In an iconoclastic age, Memorial Day survives

May 16, 2019

This year, Memorial Day falls on May 27. In my far-off childhood, it was fixed on May 30. But like so many other civil holidays, in 1971 it was transferred to the nearest Monday before that date. Nevertheless, despite that switch it retains much of the lustre it had when I was young. In cemeteries

Heretic of the week: Jan Hus

May 16, 2019

Bohemian-Czech native Jan Hus (1369-1415) is widely considered a forerunner of the Protestant revolt. In 1393 he received his BA from the University of Prague and was ordained seven years later. At the time, the Church was in the grip of the Great Western Schism, with two and eventually three Pontiffs competing for the allegiance

Heretic of the Week: Emanuel Swedenborg

May 09, 2019

Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) was – not too surprisingly, given his name – a native of Sweden. Emanuel’s father, Jesper Swedenborg, was the Lutheran bishop of Skara. Despite his position and official denomination, the senior Swedenborg was a Pietist, holding that direct experience of religion was more important than dogma – and he also held a

Heretic of the Week: John Knox

May 02, 2019

John Knox (c 1512-1572) was born sometime between 1505 and 1515 in Haddington, Scotland. He is thought to have studied at either the University of St Andrews or Edinburgh, and was ordained a Catholic priest on Holy Saturday, 1536. This was a difficult time for Scotland. King James V was killed in battle against the

If Kate Smith’s statue falls, what about Margaret Sanger’s?

May 02, 2019

The past few years have witnessed in these United States an orgy of something once thought confined to revolutionary dictatorships: the mass removal of all statues deemed ideologically offensive to the regime. In our country, it began with the ongoing removal of Confederate statues and monuments – heedless of the fact that their erection had

Heretic of the week: Rudolf Steiner

April 25, 2019

Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) was born in Donji Kraljevec, now in Croatia but then in the Hungarian half of the Austro-Hungarian empire. His father was a telegraph operator on the railroad, rising through the ranks to become a station master. Thus, the family enjoyed a comfortable but peripatetic existence. Baptised and raised Catholic, young Rudolf began

Heretic of the week: Michael Servetus

April 18, 2019

Michael Servetus (1509-1553) was a Spanish theologian, scientist and scholar, who had a talent for meeting the rich and famous, and an ultimately unfortunate knack for annoying them. He was born in Villanueva de la Sigena, Aragon, to a family of lower nobility. As a young boy, he studied Latin, Greek and Hebrew under Dominican

Bunnies, hats and parades: How Easter became a secular festival

April 18, 2019

The onset of Easter – like that of Christmas – always brings out a rush of nostalgia in me. But unlike the celebratory customs surrounding the feast of Our Lord’s birth (save the ongoing attempts to drown all thought of that fact in a sea of generic “holiday”), those of His Resurrection have changed considerably

Heretic of the week: Philip Melanchthon

April 11, 2019

Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560) was born Philip Schwartzerdt at Bretten; his father was armourer to the local lord; his mother was a niece of the great humanist scholar, Johann Reuchlin. At the age of 10 he was sent to a Latin school where he learned both Latin and Greek, and read a great deal of poetry

Where Catholics cheer Elizabeth I

April 04, 2019

April 6 is the first day of the 56th season of the Southern California Renaissance Pleasure Faire. Running until May 19 at the Santa Fe Dam Recreation Area in Irwindale, California, it is the oldest of at least 62 similar festivals coast to coast. While most of these “Renfaires” are set in Elizabethan times, some

Heretic of the week: George King

April 04, 2019

George King (1919-1997) was born in Wellington, Shropshire. His family considered itself Christian, although his mother also claimed to be a psychic, clairvoyant and healer, and encouraged young George to develop his own talents of this kind. As he grew up, King explored all the various alternative spiritualities London had to offer – theosophy, spiritualism,

Heretic of the week: Caspar Schwenckfeld

March 28, 2019

Caspar Schwenckfeld (1489-1561) was yet another Catholic priest who lost his mooring during turbulent times – in this case, the Reformation era. Born in Ossig, Silesia, to noble parents, he started university in Cologne in 1505, but after two years moved on to the university at Frankfurt on the Oder. After another year or two,

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