Moral Foundations Theory is an effort by several psychologists, the most famous of whom being Jonathan Haidt, to map out the common grammar of human morality, and I find it very interesting, and it also helps enlighten many debates. (So does my Patheos colleague Leah Libresco.) According to Moral Foundations Theory, there are five major moral categories from which groups and individuals build stories and narratives that, in turn, give flesh to their moral perspective. Those categories are: care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion and... Read more

The startup Minerva Project to me embodies everything that is wrong about the way the Church sees and does education. This is the kind of stuff we should be doing, not Silicon Valley startups. Catholic education is hopelessly wedded to conventional thinking–exactly the opposite of what we need, exactly the opposite of what the Gospel demands. I strongly recommend that you read this story on Minerva by the excellent writer Graeme Wood. I would highlight two points, resonant with themes well known... Read more

As frequent readers will know I have a great admiration for the Biblical scholar N.T. Wright. Wright, who is an Anglican, supports women’s ordination to the priesthood. I, as a Catholic, accept the Church’s infallible pronouncement that it has no authority to confer priestly ordination on women, and also agree with Pope Francis that the Church needs a better theological think-through on women. The highly helpful N.T. Wright Page has an excellent speech where Wright exegetes the well-known New Testament texts considering this... Read more

Given recent events, this seemed as appropriate as anything. I was away for a couple weeks, and during that time I visited the Cistercians of the stunningly beautiful Abbey of Aiguebelle. Aiguebelle is an elder sister of Tibhirine, and there is a deeply moving memorial to the martyrs of Tibhirine, and their leader, Fr Christian de Chergé, OCSO. One thing I learned there is that Christian first went to Algeria as a young officer in the French military. While there, a Muslim aide... Read more

We need more theologians who love Beethoven. (We need more theologians who love Led Zeppelin!) I love Mozart. Truly. He had access to the Forms. However… We have many theologians who love Mozart. Balthasar and Barth connected (in part) on their shared love of Mozart as the greatest composer in history. Ratzinger, as is well known, is a devotee of Mozart. All good. But, but, but. No, Mozart is not the greatest. Mozart is not the greatest, because for all... Read more

Fundamental Option Theory is the idea that people take a fundamental option for or against God, and that this, not any particular act, determines salvation. Catholic Answers actually has a good writeup. As the writeup recognizes, and as the Pope did when he condemned this theory, there is something to the circular: in a sense, of course, some sinful actions do not separate us from God if we have a “fundamental option” towards Him–these are known as venial sins. But some do, and... Read more

The generally interesting review Ethika Politika has an interview with Patrick Deneen. One of the money quotes that has been circulating around the internet (see e.g. my excellent Patheos co-bloggers David Mills and Sam Rocha) is this, regarding Catholic “neo-conservatives”: They have tended, then, to read the Church’s teachings on sexual ethics to be inviolable, but Catholic social teachings regarding economics to be a set of broad and even vague guidelines Can I submit that one reason that some people have this reading is... Read more

To write a historical discourse is to presuppose both an objective reality and a point of view. History is a science in the pre-Modern sense of sapientia, a rational discourse tending towards wisdom and understanding. From the literal infinity of historical datapoints, the historian necessarily selects, and this selection necessarily betrays a point of view, a host of presuppositions, and so on; but if one believes that historical discourse is a possibility at all, one believes that despite the necessity of the point of view, an “objective”... Read more

The headline popped up on my Facebook feed: “Jessa Duggar’s Christian boyfriend deletes anti-Catholic Facebook rant” For those who don’t know, the Duggar family is a reality TV family well-known for having many children and being religious Evangelical Christians, the two being connected through their belonging to the “Quiverfull Movement” which says married couples should have as many children as God will grant them. For obvious reasons, even though I’ve never watched the show, I’ve had a soft spot for the Duggars and... Read more

My friend Michael Brendan Dougherty has a piece arguing against an excessively heartless rationalism that would say that if it’s fine to eat a cow then there is, in principle, no reason why you should not eat a dog. Here’s the money quote: the reason we shouldn’t eat dogs is related to the same reason it is more heinous and hateful to burn a synagogue than a community center, or that it is more of a violation to burn down a... Read more