Author Archive for Mary Kochan

Mary Kochan, former Senior Editor of CatholicExchange, is one of the founders and Editor-at-large of CatholicLane.com. Raised as a third-generation Jehovah's Witness, Mary worked her way backwards through the Protestant Reformation to enter the Catholic Church on Trinity Sunday, 1996. Mary has spoken in many settings, to groups large and small, on the topic of destructive cultism and has been a guest on both local and national radio programs. To arrange for Mary to speak at your event, you may contact her at kochanmar@gmail.com.

Being in Love
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Being in Love

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Aristotle observed that all was in motion. Everything was in a process of change. Whatever stage you observed, there was always a prior movement and prior change. Aristotle realized that we could not go back like that forever. At some point we had to come to an originator of all this motion.

Why <i>Sola Scriptura</i> Still Matters, Part One
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Why Sola Scriptura Still Matters, Part One

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We are now just over 501 and one years since Martin Luther’s posting of his ninety-five theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg Germany, the spark that lit the fire of what many Protestants still proudly call the “Reformation.” The Banner of the “Reformation” Still Flies Given the climate of cooperation and dialogue […]

Why <em>Sola Scriptura</em> Still Matters, Part Two
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Why Sola Scriptura Still Matters, Part Two

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In part one we discussed the importance that the Protestant principle of sola scriptura still has this close to the 500th anniversary of the “Reformation.” Now it is time to get into the meat of the argument by examining the classic Protestant interpretation of two key verses of Scripture. “All Scripture Is Inspired” The Bible verses […]

Why <em>Sola Scriptura</em> Still Matters, Part Three
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Why Sola Scriptura Still Matters, Part Three

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In part two, we left this discussion asking exactly what the point was of 2 Timothy 3:16-17, if it is not the sola scriptura conclusion that Protestants often draw. What exactly was this apostolic authority, St. Paul, saying to Timothy about the Scriptures? Was St. Paul saying that “the Bible” would make the man of God […]

Book Review: <em>Dreams for your Grandchild</em>
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Book Review: Dreams for your Grandchild

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  Dreams for your Grandchild by Allen Hunt is both a lovely book and a practical book. Subtitled, The Hidden Power of a Catholic Grandparent, the book is a mixture of exhortation, relevant suggestions, and inspiring stories. Writing a book about the relationship between Catholic grandparents and their grandchildren is as challenging as writing about […]

Defend the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity!
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Defend the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity!

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Every time we make the sign of the Cross we make an invocation of the Holy Trinity: “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Those who grew up as Catholics, or in other religious communities with an orthodox understanding of this Triune nature of God, may take […]

Meant to Be
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Meant to Be

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On September 22, 1290 Bilbo Baggins was born.  The year given for his birth, of course, is in Shire Reckoning: The Shire being that happy part of Middle-Earth inhabited by those sensible and unpretentious folk called “Hobbits.” To that salt-of-the-earth Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, there comes one day an amazing summons.  The call to participate in […]

Etiquette for the Non-praying
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Etiquette for the Non-praying

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School has begun and it is only a matter of time before what has become the perennially vexing problem of school prayer makes the headlines once again. From the Left, we can expect cautions against the “dangerous” practice of student-led prayer because of “how susceptible schoolchildren are to peer pressure”. My own upbringing was as […]

Book Review: <em>The Apostasy that Wasn't</em>
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Book Review: The Apostasy that Wasn’t

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We are supposed to love the Catholic Church. After all, Christ is in love with her.  She is his bride. St. Paul desired to present the Church to him as a pure bride (2 Cor. 11: 2) and St. John in mystical vision saw her, glorious and radiant, adorned as a bride ready to be […]

Talkin’ Marriage Online: The Trouble with TMI
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Talkin’ Marriage Online: The Trouble with TMI

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It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as […]

St. Luke, Evangelist and Historian
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St. Luke, Evangelist and Historian

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Today is the Feast of St. Luke the evangelist. Luke was a native of Antioch and unlike the other New Testament writers, was not a Jew, but a Greek. When we look for Luke in the Scriptures, we first come across his Gospel, but from a historical perspective, his first mention is not in the […]

When Things Fall Apart Inside
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When Things Fall Apart Inside

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Depression. A dictionary or thesaurus gives us some striking synonyms: a hollow, a cavity, a sinkhole. It is where something inside has given way causing the surface to fall in. The person experiencing depression has had that experience — the experience of something inside giving way, the loss of some internal structure or support. Elijah […]

Can It Be?
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Can It Be?

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I celebrate my 21st Easter this year, 2015. For the first 38 years of my life I did not celebrate Easter because I was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, a pseudo-Christian group with a very strange economy of salvation. It is not easy to describe life in a cult like Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is very dark. Even […]

Two Josephs, Both Alike in Chastity
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Two Josephs, Both Alike in Chastity

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With our attention upon St. Joseph today, it might be good to look back at the Old Testament figure for whom Mary’s chaste spouse was most likely named. That would be Joseph, son of Jacob, grandson of Isaac, and great-grandson of Abraham. Joseph is a popular name for Jewish boys precisely as a memorial of this […]

CL9e - hbratton notxt
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How to Celebrate St. Valentine’s Day Like Adults

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Men, you are being bombarded with advertising telling you that your wife would love to have a Teddy Bear for Valentine’s Day.  Here is a little flowchart to help you decide if you should get your wife a Teddy Bear.

Book Review: <em>Practical Theology, Spiritual Direction from St. Thomas Aquinas</em>
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Book Review: Practical Theology, Spiritual Direction from St. Thomas Aquinas

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Sometimes new parents will half jokingly complain that their precious new charge did not “come with an instruction manual”. They may be overlooking something. They don’t even have an instruction manual for their own selves. Think about it. Even the simplest utensil or small appliance nowadays comes with pages of instructions, often in multiple languages. […]

Organizing Your Kitchen
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Organizing Your Kitchen

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With Christmas busyness behind, the yard in winter dormancy, and tax season still far enough ahead not to be urgent, it’s that time of year when thoughts turn to home organization. Our God is not a God of confusion and disorder, but a God of peace (1 Cor. 14:33). Order brings peace to our minds and […]

Shudder -- It's Good for You
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Shudder — It’s Good for You

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Be sober. Accept reality. This is serious.

Book Review:<em> Chesterton’s America</em>
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Book Review: Chesterton’s America

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To recommend any book, I should at least be able to say to you that it is a pleasure to read. This book is a pleasure indeed! But saying the least is not my problem with reviewing Chesterton’s America: A Distributist History of the United States. My problem is having the space to say all […]

The Romance of Religion
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Book Review: The Romance of Religion by Dwight Longenecker

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Ever “evolving”, “progressing” — or so he believes — the modern intellectual mentality slithers out of the sea of mystery, clambering from arrogant skepticism to jaded cynicism, until exhausted of wit and verve, it reaches the hard shore of “reason”.  And there on the flat landscape it flutters, just out of reach of the lapping […]

If You Can be Dismembered Without Due Process, What’s a Little Detention?
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If You Can be Dismembered Without Due Process, What’s a Little Detention?

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The National Defense Authorization Act is probably something you never heard of before the last few weeks of 2011, even though some iteration or other of this federal law has been enacted every year for the past 49 years. Right as Advent 2011 was starting, the Act (full name: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, hereinafter […]

A Whale of an Argument
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A Whale of an Argument

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Have you heard the argument against the existence of God based on the size of the universe? You might find it strange that an argument against God would be constructed based on the enormity of space — something that elicits awe and wonder. But it is, and it goes like this: You see how big the […]

By What Authority - Carousel
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Book Review: By What Authority by Mark Shea

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Resolve to read “By What Authority?” in 2014.

When I Will Concern Myself with the Roman Curia
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When I Will Concern Myself with the Roman Curia

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Who’s in? Who’s out? Who’s up? Who’s down? Who’s headed up or headed down?  Whose influence is waxing or waning? Ah, Rome.  The Eternal City of intrigue. Ah, Vaticanistas. Of making many speculations there is no end. I will concern myself with the goings on of the Roman Curia when: All the dust is gone […]