Darn Tootin’ Pope Francis Is A Liberal

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 3:01 pm By Max Lindenman

Last month, Elizabeth Scalia, my managing editor, proposed a moratorium on “liberal,” “conservative,” and suchlike labels in discussions of intra-Church divisions. I’ve been a good boy ever since, but Philadelphia’s Archbishop Chaput doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo. In an interview with National Catholic Reporter’s John Allen, Jr., he remarked that people on “the right wing of the church…generally have not been really happy” about Francis’ election. It’s true that Francis has his critics. But there’s also been a... Read more

Deluge

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 3:01 pm By Max Lindenman

The clouds, low-hanging and swollen, were spilling in from the east and purpling the sky over South Mountain and Ahwatukee. They didn’t concern me, though. Phoenix monsoons tend to be parochial affairs, showering one neighborhood while leaving others dry, if slightly sandblasted. Walking west on Van Buren Street, I judged myself and my route to be outside their line of fire by a solid few miles. I had other things on my mind. First was my shirt, which in certain... Read more

How It Feels to Be Received Like Christ

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 3:01 pm By Max Lindenman

The first thing I noticed about the vocational discernment retreat was the median age of the guests, which I estimated at 65. Then I saw the girl in the wheelchair. I couldn’t put a name to her disability, but her legs appeared withered or stunted, and she was wearing child-sized shoes. Her hands, though normal-sized, were clenched, clawlike. In her late teens or early 20s, she looked like the youngest person in the room. I knew the old chestnut about... Read more

Francis’ Pontificate: No Rest for the Aesthetic-Minded?

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 3:01 pm By Max Lindenman

You’ve got to hand it to Katrina Fernandez. Yesterday on the Crescat blog, she really nails her colors — and spangles, and sequins, and possibly feathers — to the mast. Sighing that the baroque gewgaws Pope Francis has consigned to storage “spiritually feed me” and have “meaning…that I need to experience through my senses,” she concludes: “It’s just so hard to warm up to someone who feels the things you find important and meaningful to be trivial frivolities.” If she’d... Read more

Renunciations

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 3:01 pm By Max Lindenman

For the better part of last month, my brain wouldn’t work. Well, maybe that’s putting it a little strongly. Stout, loyal organ that it is, it went on functioning at a primitive level, linking names and faces, recognizing days of the week and colors, reminding me when it was time to use the bathroom and whether convention dictated I should stand or sit when I did. It also went on generating SEO copy at its accustomed rate. But when it... Read more

Learning to Read Chesterton

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 3:01 pm By Max Lindenman

A couple of days ago, in drawing a contrast to Pope Francis, National Catholic Reporter’s Michael Sean Winters remarks that Philadelphia Archbishop Chaput may love God, but often seems not to like people. I see his point. It’s easy to imagine Chaput, for all his good qualities, starting each day by spelling out A-N-A-T-H-E-M-A in his Alpha-Bits. But Winters can be quite the crab in his own right. Get him started on one of his pet peeves, and you’ll see... Read more

The Witness of Mary Elizabeth Williams

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 3:01 pm By Max Lindenman

Salon staffer Mary Elizabeth Williams calls herself “a gay-friendly, feminist, pro-choice, bigmouthed practicing Catholic.” In two weeks, she expects to watch as her older daughter is confirmed in the faith. In an essay published yesterday, she dissects her motives and expectations. In the Catholic press, the conflicted or cafeteria Catholic is most often represented as a demographic bloc: the 82% of Catholics who approve of artificial birth control, the 54% that supports gay marriage. If anyone embodies the numbers, it’s... Read more

How’s That “Culture of Encounter” Workin’ for Ya?

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 3:01 pm By Max Lindenman

On Wednesday, May 22, Pope Francis called on Catholics and non-Catholics to build a “culture of encounter,” in which members of the opposing camps “meet one another doing good.” Apparently stealing a page from Fr. Z, he addressed some of his remarks to a caviling, composite EveryCatholic: The Lord created us in His image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord, and He does good and all of us have this commandment at heart: do good and... Read more

My Mother: Muse and Proxy Fighter

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 3:01 pm By Max Lindenman

Last Thursday at the office, right in the middle of her work day, my mother received an urgent phone call. “Hey, Mom,” the caller began. “I know you’re busy running the ESOL program and compiling that annual review where your students write about being trapped in mudslides and bitten by mongeese and beaten with sjamboks by qat-chewing child soldiers, but I’m working on a piece about teachers, and I wanted to go over your Sister Leonida story.” Sr. Leonida was... Read more

The Passion of Mr. B: A Salute to Bad Teachers

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 3:01 pm By Max Lindenman

In honor of National Teacher Day, which was Tuesday, May 7, Slate is running an article titled “What’s the Worst Thing A Teacher Ever Said to You?” The staff writers who weigh in think they’ve got some doozies. One teacher told Matt Yglesias that Native Americans make up “a subset of yellow people.” A gym teacher told Dahlia Lithwick’s mother that girls shouldn’t play sports. Torie Bosch’s sex ed teacher informed his students he was addressing a distasteful subject under... Read more