Jesus does not really make chaos or problems. He stirs up existing problems and makes us aware of the false peace we strike with the world. Jesus ruins this false peace and gives us peace grounded on truth. –get the book here; it uses this image, our attempt to negotiate a false peace with the world, a couple of times, & I really like it. Read more
The things I’ve been reading. This week’s theme is “Things I Know Little About.” Inebriate Me: “The Real Problem with Vaticanomics.” Our critique of Vaticanomics must start with its being unimaginative and—I will even say—boring. Say about it what you will, but when Jesus instructed the rich young man to give all his money to the poor and talked about camels and needles, it wasn’t boring. I am being provocative, but here’s why it actually matters. The first one is... Read more
I just finished The New Evangelization: 2003 – 2013 Missionary Letters, which is basically a collection of fundraising letters from A Simple House, an intentional Catholic community which practices “friendship evangelization” among the poor in DC and Kansas City, MO. It’s a genuinely moving book with solid reflections on the theory and practice of charity. There are good explanations of why the authors focus on friendship as vs. efficient meeting of material needs, and there are countless personal stories which... Read more
on an awful, years-long case: In 2006, 15-year-old Rennie Gibbs became pregnant. She tested positive for marijuana and cocaine during her pregnancy. Her daughter Samiya was born a month premature, with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck. An autopsy on the child found traces of a cocaine byproduct, and Rennie was charged with murder—or rather, with what Mississippi calls “depraved heart murder,” signifying an especially callous crime. Gibbs’s case has wound its way through the legal system, and it... Read more
for the American Spectator: In early January, I attend my very first professional sports competition. The U.S. National Figure Skating Championships have already been going on for four days; the event sprawls over four disciplines and five age categories. I’m at Boston’s TD Garden to watch the senior men, including the two men we’ll be sending to the Winter Olympics in Sochi. Sport, like art, uses the limited body to hint at a world without limits. The ball soaring over... Read more
The super fun Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry joins us at Patheos, and takes his blog title from my actual favorite prayer. Read more
Dinaw Mengestu’s 2010 How to Read the Air tells two parallel stories: In alternating chapters, Jonas Woldemariam retells the story of his Ethiopian immigrant parents’ ill-fated road trip through the Midwest, and his own equally ill-starred career as a teacher and husband. But the book is more tangled than most parallel-lines-meet narratives. Jonas is not only retelling the road trip but retracing it; the chapters about his teaching include the many stories he tells his students about his parents’ past;... Read more
here: Francis also showed sensitivity by ensuring that a victim was part of the team, in this case a well-known Irish campaigner for victims’ rights named Marie Collins. Among other things, Collins is known to have the ear of Dublin’s Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, who, like O’Malley, is a prelate known around the world for taking strong stands in favor of coming clean on the abuse scandals. much more; and do scroll down to the final item in this column as... Read more
I’m in this: What you’ll find here are videos by a group of faithful gay Catholics who believe in the Church’s teachings about marriage and sexuality. We’ll talk about what that teaching is and why we’ve embraced it, the spiritual riches that we’ve found within the Church, the obstacles and misunderstandings that we’ve faced, and the ways that Catholics can help to support gay people who seek the Lord with good will. more–requires you to create an account, but no... Read more
yeah: …I am glad that Smith understands so well that the grace of marriage is something that must be actively pursued, consciously acted upon. And I hope that her confidence in her husband is rewarded with unbroken faithfulness and love, and that she will not be shattered when she discovers that he does have flaws. I hope that people read her piece and realize that it makes sense to look hard for a spouse who is trustworthy. But I hope... Read more
Eve Tushnet
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