Today is the Solemnity of Christus Rex, Christ the King. On this day, Christians are called to reflect upon the Kingship of Christ–Kingship over their lives, but also Kingship over the social order. What would it look like if His will was done on Earth as it is in Heaven? Today’s Gospel reading, Matthew 25:31-46, gives us a hint: And when the Son of man shall come in his majesty, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit upon... Read more

Bishops foregoing their palaces has become the New Hotness since Francis took over (although it has repeatedly happened historically, of course). The Trad blog Rorate Caeli published an op-ed denouncing this practice. To be a bishop is to hold high office, and it is fitting that this high office be accoutered with splendor. Okay. Well, as a good Vatican II Catholic, I want to begin by affirming the elements of truth and sanctification we see here. The first is that, yes,... Read more

So, as y’all know, I’ve been thinking about penal substitutionary atonement lately. While I do think that it’s very hard for the doctrine to not open itself up to some of the most popular criticisms, e.g. it turns God into a cosmic child abuser, etc., the main focus of my critique, the one which I think is not only fatal, but most important, is the doctrine of sin and evil as having absolutely no existence, but as rather being the lack... Read more

The great blog Mere Orthodoxy has a great podcast called Mere Fidelity. Because I am an anti-Protestant troll on Twitter, they invited me to do an episode of their podcast on the topic of the atonement theory of penal substitution. A lot of fun was had by all–or at least by me. I was arguing against PSA and the guests were arguing for. While we were preparing for the podcast, I sent out to the other guests some thoughts on the... Read more

Cue the outrage machine. Cardinal O’Malley was asked about the LCWR Intervention and called it a “disaster.” When you watch the actual interview, it’s clear that O’Malley is referring to the public relations optics of having on the one hand a bunch of humble nuns working with the poor, and on the other hand a bunch of (male) bishops from the Vatican putting them in receivership.  And on that score, he’s absolutely right. From everything I’ve read, it seems clear to me that many... Read more

The best one-sentence summary of the Catholic position on the issue of science and religion is “If you see a conflict between science and religion, you’re either dealing with bad science or bad religion.” But it seems to me that if we’re hyper-aware of the problem with the latter (bad religion), we are less well-aware of the problem with the former (bad science). And it’s very easy to produce bad science. This is intrinsic to the scientific process. The scientific process produces... Read more

For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it. Matthew 19:12 He who marries does right, but he who does not marry does better. 1 Corinthians 7:38 If any one saith, that the marriage state is to be placed above... Read more

Fellow Patheosi Billy Kangas is a co-founder of the excellent theology website Theologues and its podcast Roundtable. I am listening to this episode, which deals with the “problem passages” of the Bible. This is not what this post is about. During the podcast, the guests made several in-passing negative references to the monastic practice of self-flagellation, which were never challenged. In particular, they made a couple points: the first is that God, being fundamentally non-violent and opposed to suffering, could not... Read more

I have tried to stay silent on the so-called Benedict Option because, as I suspected from the start, most of the debates around this topic have been reduced to semantic debates, with opponents (or “opponents”) taking it to mean “withdrawal from social life”, and with respondents angrily responding that, no, no, that’s not what it’s about, and everyone using that term as a Rorschach Test. But I got into a discussion about it on Twitter, and I am listening to the (excellent)... Read more