Okay, so someone in a com-box responding to Steel Magnificat’s recent post asked for a serious essay about whether homosexuality is a religious issue, or a natural law issue. Dealing with this in terms of Catholic doctrine, and the way that we understand the natural law, is a fairly complex undertaking.Today, I want to do something altogether simpler. Rather than defending a particular position vis a vis a traditional natural law analysis of homosexual acts, I’m going to take a... Read more
So Crisis Magazine published two articles yesterday about the Pope’s apology. Who’s surprised? Well, to be honest, I really only expected there to be one. The one I expected is that one by John Henry Westen, “The Pope is Right for the Wrong Reasons.” It’s about how, really, what the Pope should have apologized to gay people for is for the failure of the Church to clearly and forcefully articulate its moral teaching about the grave depravity of homosexual acts.... Read more
Yesterday, I promised that I would address the charges that the God which I (as a Catholic) worship is a “misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” I can see from the combox that some of the atheist peanut gallery are standing by, waiting for me to tangle myself up in a mess of scriptural double talk. I’m not planning to do that at all. Rather, I want to talk about the difference between a)... Read more
““I believe that the church should not only say sorry, as Cardinal Marx says, it should not only say sorry to the person who is gay that it has offended, but also it should say sorry to the poor and to women who are exploited, and the children who are exploited for work.” He went on to explain that “When I say church I mean Christians. The church is holy but we are sinners. Christians must say sorry for not... Read more
One of our friends over at the atheist channel has penned a rebuttal to Peter Kreeft’s video explaining why we should want God to exist. Hemant Mehta of Friendly Atheist summarizes and dismisses each of Kreeft’s arguments — and to be perfectly honest, I can sympathize with most of what he’s saying here. I’m gonna divide his arguments into two parts, because there are really two different things that he’s doing. One is basically to dismiss the things that would... Read more
Currently, Canada’s lawmakers are debating legislation that will govern medical aid in dying – what used to be called euthanasia, or doctor assisted suicide. As a Canadian Catholic, I feel that I should weigh in. So I’ll tell a nice story about ducks. Several weeks ago, we had a problem with our coop security and something got in during the night and attacked our beautiful little flock of adolescent Muscovies. My husband came in in the morning and told me... Read more
It was a hot day in late summer, and my best friend was visiting after several years of living in Europe. We were watching my autistic son buzzing around the pool. I felt like my brain was going to melt from stress. Pools are always a danger for children, and a child who isn’t capable of understanding verbal commands is a special challenge under any conditions. My friend looked contemplative. “I really like him,” he said after a while. “He’s,”... Read more
Not The Time Or Place: An Open Letter to Elliot Milco The other day, I posted a response to a post that appeared at First Things. I subtitled the piece “An Open Letter to First Things.” I should have titled it “An Open Letter to Elliot Milco” — as it was specifically addressed to a particular member of the First Things staff. I have since amended it accordingly. First Things, unlike many other “conservative” Christian publications, has not held a... Read more
It was less than 24 hours after the Orlando shooting that I saw the first Catholic in a combox complaining about LGBTQ identities. In that case, it was someone scolding my friend Joe Prever for replacing his profile picture with the US flag/rainbow graphic that is currently being used on FaceBook to show solidarity for the victims. The rainbow, it was argued, represented a symbol of an oppressive LGBTQ regime that is undermining the true identity of God’s people. Today,... Read more
So, the other day I wrote about religiously motivated hate, how that has impacted my own spirituality, and how that plays into the Christian response to the events in Orlando. Naturally, I got a combox full of atheists claiming that the way to solve these problems is simply to do away with religion. It’s a very familiar old trope. Imagine a world with no heaven, no God, no religion, no countries, nothing to kill for, nothing to die for, and... Read more
Catholic Authenticity
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