When I was a teen or in my early twenties, I’m not really certain exactly when this event occurred.  One thin I am sure of, it was late at night.

I was driving along on a road that was usually deserted at the time I was on it heading toward home.  In fact, home was just a few more twists and turns down the road.

I was probably driving way too fast.  It seems that most of my driving in those days was way too fast.

But as I was driving along this narrow, dark, familiar road, I approached another vehicle.  The dim red tail lights began to come more and more into focus and soon I could see they were attached to a beat up white van.

I was deciding whether or not to pass the van and the strangest thing happened.

The rear doors on the van flew…

Several months ago, I wrote a post about one of my memories of growing up within Catholicism. When I was in grammar school, the nuns would periodically go to the blackboard and draw a three-legged stool as a symbol of the Catholic church. The idea was that the church was extremely well-supported by its three pillars of guidance and authority: Holy Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the magisterium (the pope and the bishops as teachers). All three legs were taught to be equal in authority. It was pointed out by the sisters that, in contrast, the poor Protestants had only one leg, Holy Scripture, supporting their stool, which of course made for a laughable and completely untrustworthy seating device.

In that previous post, I commented on how pope Francis’ controversial lifting of the ban on communion for remarried divorcees has exposed the baselessness of the claims regarding the divinely-led teaching authority of…