Recently, a friend on FaceBook posted a picture of her son’s Pokemon cards. It was a cute, innocent picture: a child’s card collection augmented with hand-drawn Pokemon art. And since it was in the feed of a devout Catholic woman, inevitably someone jumped into the com-box and declared that the cards should be immediately burned in order to ward off the risk of Satanism. The argument was not that Pokemon itself was demonic, but rather that Pokemon cards are a... Read more
As a queer Christian blogger, I suppose I should have something to say about the murder and torture of gay men in Chechnya. I’ve got nothing. A gaping ache, that’s all really. Tears. The image of Christ crucified and that face, crying out to heaven: “Why?” Why have you forsaken me? It is the centre of all theology, this question that we ask God, and the only reason why I go on believing is that God turned to God, one... Read more
Mary Pezzulo over at Steel Magnificat has written an excellent piece about the problem with name-calling, contentiousness, and point-scoring in the name of “apologetics.” I agree completely with what she says, and I recommend reading her post. I also want to offer a few thoughts from the other side of the aisle, as it were. If you spend a lot of time in ideologically motivated communities, you’re going to encounter a lot of sanctimony and self-righteousness. It doesn’t matter whether... Read more
With the recent death of Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, Catholic media has seen a small wave of affectionate nostalgia for the good old days when people believed that homosexuality could be cured by psychotherapy. I don’t want to talk much about Nicolosi himself: as I understand it, his death was fairly sudden and I’m sure his friends and family are still grieving his loss. Suffice it to say he’s had a lot of haters, and there are reasons for that. At... Read more
“The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected.” – G. K. Chesterton There’s an article over at Crisis today called the “Priesthood of the Transgendered.” Dealing with all of the problematic claims that the article makes would take several blog posts, but I would like to choose this one: the fairly routine claim of religious conservatives... Read more
Several days ago, I put up a post about gradualism and NFP. In the com-box, I had a number of women show up to prattle on about the “difficulties” that they’ve had in trying to space births naturally. I’ve also had several much holier women show up to point out that these women are crybabies who really just need to grow up. So, say a woman has tried four different types of NFP and hasn’t been able to find an... Read more
I’m usually not a big fan of contemporary writing about the Saints. I like the Golden Legend, not because I believe the stories but because it’s a great read and it offers a fascinating glimpse into Medieval Christianity. I enjoy St. Jerome’s outlandish tales of garish martyrdoms. I tolerate Butler’s because it’s the book about the Saints. But I’ll be honest, for the most part when I want to know who the patron Saint of gardening is so that I’ll... Read more
Spring sale! All my books are currently available for 30% off or better at amazon.com until the end of the month. Enjoy! Image credit: me Stay in touch! Like Catholic Authenticity on Facebook: Catholic Authenticity Read more
One of the great mysteries of NFP literature is the claim that natural family planning is “marriage building.” It sounds good, but it can be notoriously difficult to pin down what this elusive phrase means. In some cases the term gets defined in ways that simply aren’t accurate. Couples are promised that NFP will improve communication (studies suggest that actually it’s the other way around — good communication is functionally a necessity in order to practice NFP in the first... Read more
Recently, there’s been a story circulating about a man – a guy who is obviously a male, dressed as a male, behaving like a male – appearing in the bathroom at DisneyLand. The blogger, who describes herself as progressive, discusses how uncomfortable the presence of a man in the women’s bathroom made her. She says that even though she supports trans rights she thinks that there needs to be some method of determining whether a person does, or does not,... Read more
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