False Beauties

July 25, 2014 By David Mills

“I’m not all that surprised when I hear of 18-year-olds who expected to hold a man with their bodies, and yet find themselves objectified and rejected. But a 59-year-old should know more about beauty and love,” writes Aimee Byrd, a Calvinist blogger writing at the usually interesting and sometimes fascinating Reformation21. (I say “usually interesting” because some of the theological discussions of the fine points of Reformation theology will leave most Catholic readers in a coma.) She’s writing of an older... Read more

Judging Israel

July 24, 2014 By David Mills

Driving back from a trip a couple of days ago, I was listening to one of NPR’s news programs, which began with a long tape of a reporter in Gaza telling us about what she was seeing, beginning in a neighborhood being attacked and ending in a hospital, and the stories she told were, of course, heartbreaking. Neither the reporter nor the hosts made any political comments but the placement of the story, its length, and the personal stories it... Read more

The MBTI Explains the Limits of Open-Mindedness

July 24, 2014 By David Mills

I have my doubts about the Meyers-Briggs Type Inventory, described in The Pastoral MBTI, but it has its uses. Admittedly I was using it for my own purposes and not its own, but it helped me explain the limits of open-mindedness in an essay I wrote for Touchstone years ago. Close Your Mind begins: G. K. Chesterton once said of his friend H. G. Wells: “I think he thought that the object of opening the mind is simply opening the mind.... Read more

What the Bishops Should Do For Victims

July 24, 2014 By David Mills

Asked by America‘s interviewer what the bishops should be doing for victims of clerical sexual abuse, Dawn Eden — herself a childhood victim — praises “victim-led support groups for healing done in conjunction with the local church,” giving a couple of examples and then says: For bishops, the more you do to locate and encourage independent support networks for victims, the more victims will feel the church cares about them. When all of the efforts to help victims come from diocesan safe environment... Read more

Francis Invites the Anglicans In

July 23, 2014 By David Mills

Francis would like Anglicans to become Catholics. With English Anglicans having yet more reason to become Catholics, now that the Church of England has voted to create women bishops, the Ordinariate Benedict formed as a way into the Catholic Church has organized an “exploration day,” and the Holy Father has conveyed “his good wishes and prayers for a successful and inspiring event. The Holy Father cordially imparts his Apostolic Blessing upon all those persons who are participating in this significant... Read more

The Archbishop is Not the Pope

July 23, 2014 By David Mills

He’s not a pope, the archbishop of Canterbury says, because “we [the Church of England] have a reformed tradition which says that decisions about the Church are made by the whole people of God, by the laity, that we have to be rather cautious about people laying down the law from on high.” Justin Welby’s description would have been news to the Anglican reformers, who had no such idea of lay authority. They knew what God wanted (or so they... Read more

Sexuality, Sexual Abuse & Chastity: An Interview with Dawn Eden

July 23, 2014 By David Mills

“’With Peter, I say: ‘To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,’” Dawn Eden, being interviewed by America, says in response to the question of what she says to those who lost their faith after being sexually abused. [W]e who have suffered need to be proactive about our own healing. Jesus is present in the sacraments, in Scripture, in the prayer and life of the church. Even if everyone in the church is sinful, Jesus assures... Read more

What Francis Is Up To

July 22, 2014 By David Mills

Francis is either foolish or cunning, is the basic division among Catholics bothered by things he’s said, particularly those things he’s said as reported by the atheist leftist Eugenio Scalfari. Here are two arguments for the second: From the Irish Independent, the opinion of John Waters (a writer whose books I heartily commend) suggests that perhaps Francis, painfully aware of the manner in which virtually every intervention of his predecessor was manipulated and distorted . . . elects to play the... Read more

Intentionally Addicting Facebook

July 22, 2014 By David Mills

Facebook, observes Jess Zimmerman writing in The Guardian, is testing a “buy” button that will allow you to instantly purchase anything you see in an ad or post. This will eventually lead to all of us chain-smoking while we feed endless dollars into a Facebook-themed slot machine. She describes a vacation in Las Vegas in which everything one could possibly want was provided in the same hotel, thereby making sure you didn’t go outside and that you did spend all your money −... Read more

The Pastoral MBTI

July 21, 2014 By David Mills

The Meyers-Briggs [Personality] Type Inventory is a way of categorizing people along four spectra producing sixteen types. It has been wildly popular in seminaries for decades, because whatever you think pastors like pigeon-holing people as much as anyone. Because pastors know people. In theory, I mean. In any case, it’s quite possible you’ve had a pastor solely because of the way the faculty read his MBTI type. (I know this because I worked and taught at a seminary which included... Read more