This afternoon, the 5th grader comes to me for homework help after school at St. Urban’s. It’s a grammar review, and she couldn’t make sense of the directions for question #3. The directions: “Use context clues to determine the meaning of the bolded word below.” These directions were difficult to understand because the sentence is: “The hunter killed several deer in order to have enough venison to feed his family during the long, cold winter.” The idea that someone wouldn’t know what venison meant… Read more
Denying the Faith – Christianity vs. Islam, Martyrdom & Taqiya
October 9, 2016 By Jennifer Fitz
This is a request for assistance from any readers who are knowledgeable on the topic. Please kindly refrain from answering if your knowledge of Islam consists primarily of passing around inflammatory memes on social media, thanks. Background: Yesterday in my extensive goofing off online, a friend pointed me to Wikipedia’s darkly amusing catalog of all the different ways people lie. In skimming the article, I stumbled on the reference to Taqiya, a concept that was heretofore completely unknown to me. If I… Read more
Why SC Shuts Down When Weather Gets Near Us
October 5, 2016 By Jennifer Fitz
Related: Over at the Conspiracy I give instructions on how to watch the evacuation live, including the understatedly-impressive I-26 lane reversal. *** Here’s Governor Haley acting like you might hope, say, a president would act: You can like her politics or not, but at least we as a nation have hope that there are some moderately-competent politicians in the pipeline for less disastrous election years to come. Meanwhile, let’s talk about South Carolina’s habit of taking personal days every time… Read more
Immigration Policy and the Moral Law
September 27, 2016 By Jennifer Fitz
“You shall do no injustice in judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.” Leviticus 19:15 This month over at (the extremely right-leaning) Chronicles magazine, Karina Rollins is reporting on the epidemic of sexual assaults committed by migrants in Germany. To recap the situation, a few links from across the spectrum: Here’s a detailed report from the Gatestone Institute – useful because of the summary of incidents… Read more
Traps for Catechists and How to Avoid Them
August 16, 2016 By Jennifer Fitz
It’s new-catechist season, and if you know such a person, I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you about the book you want. It’s Classroom Management for Catechists, by me. It’s cheap, short, readable, and gives you a 101 on how to avoid all the stupid things I did as a new religious ed teacher, and instead go directly to putting together a decent class even if you aren’t a genius with magical superpowers. There’s a Spanish version, too. If you… Read more
Why You Should Vote 3rd Party This Year
July 22, 2016 By Jennifer Fitz
If there were a morally acceptable candidate offered by either major party, of course you could vote for that person in clear conscience. There isn’t, and therefore many people are settling for choosing the least-bad candidate. Don’t do this. Vote third party. Why? Voting third party is the most effective way for you to bring about a change of regime. It’s more effective than a write-in campaign (barring a massive, united, nationwide campaign, which I don’t see happening). It’s certainly… Read more
More About the South: Funeral Processions
July 22, 2016 By Jennifer Fitz
Rev. Cindy Maddox (United Church of Christ) wrote a moving piece about grief and funeral processions. That post reminded me of something I’ve been meaning to write for a while: Down here in the land of the backwards and ignorant, over and again I have seen people pull over in respect for the funeral procession when they did not have to do so. You’ll be in a procession that’s going down a four-lane divided highway* and you see on the… Read more
Christian Calamities: A Taste of the South to Help You Choke on America
July 20, 2016 By Jennifer Fitz
There’s been pearl-clutching in odd quarters ever since Pastor Mark Burns, a South Carolinian, delivered his benediction on the Republican party. I am not a Republican and I won’t be voting for Trump, and I don’t think you should either. I am dismayed by the weaselly justifications some of my fellow Christians are spouting these days in their support for the GOP candidate. Still, it amuses me that the professionally-impious are suddenly offended on our Lord’s behalf for what is, as… Read more
Behind the Scenes in Catholic Blogging
July 18, 2016 By Jennifer Fitz
It is no surprise, given the violence and destruction the enemy is wreaking in the physical world, that the Church would likewise be under vicious attack. I’d like to address some questions readers have about professional Catholic blogging, and before I begin, here’s a passage of Scripture I think sets the right framework for us: 3 Whoever teaches something different and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the religious teaching 4 is conceited,… Read more
Spiritual Apathy and the War on Terror
July 16, 2016 By Jennifer Fitz
Over at the Catholic Conspiracy, Tom Zampino lays out the case for just warfare and writes: Any remaining illusions that we, ourselves, are safe anywhere – that we can, somehow, escape the carnage unscathed – have, of course, long since been shattered. Each new attack only serves to drive us further into despair, and deeper into isolation. . . . . . . we can and should urge those who legitimately hold authority over us to use all arms necessary to quickly defeat this… Read more
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