Loud Dogma Living at Your House? Get the T-Shirt

September 14, 2017 By Jennifer Fitz

My editors over at the Catholic Conspiracy have succumbed to my pleading and issued a The Dogma Lives Loudly Within Me t-shirt that suits my aesthetic demands: The best link for the moment if you want one of your own is: http://www.cafepress.com/mf/110941637/the-dogma-lives_tshirt . From there you can choose a variety of size options including maternity, kids’ and baby options. The editors went with the more expensive shirts because their research indicated the quality is significantly better. To offset that, they are offering... Read more

Misogyny and Motherhood

September 14, 2017 By Jennifer Fitz

Why is it that we think it's heroic when men choose to give their lives to save another person ... but we have doubts about whether women ought to be so heroic? Read more

Gay Rights Activists Send Death Threats to Scientists – Yikes!

September 12, 2017 By Jennifer Fitz

From that bastion of conservatism The Washington Post comes reports of gay rights activists sending death threats to scientists at Stanford: The backlash against the study wasn’t limited to GLAAD and HRC. Kosinski wrote that he received emails telling him to kill himself and comparing his work to the Holocaust. Others on social media were no more charitable. A reader on Twitter, for example, writes: I consider myself peaceful but think researchers @michalkosinski & @simonywang should be burned alive for this. https://t.co/F2hDXXwLpJ... Read more

“Price Gouging” and Catholic Social Teaching

September 6, 2017 By Jennifer Fitz

Up at the Register, I’m talking about why price gouging is wrong: Catholics don’t reject free market economic principles out of hand, and yet most of us instinctively understand that price gouging in a crisis is morally wrong. There are two reasons for this, and both of them are related to a fundamental respect for free markets. The first is that the economic power of capitalism is intended to serve the needs of men, not the reverse; the second is that the... Read more

Can a Catholic Affirm the Nashville Statement?

August 31, 2017 By Jennifer Fitz

The Nashville Statement is a set of 14 affirmations and denials concerning Christianity and human sexuality, composed by evangelical Protestants. There are two points on which Catholics should disagree. Read more

Generation Bodies-R-Us

August 28, 2017 By Jennifer Fitz

This weekend walking the halls of the public high school hosting my daughter’s volleyball tournament, I saw handmade signs inviting students to join the club that fights against human trafficking. I approve. This generation of high school students have particular reason to object to the buying and selling of human bodies: They are the Objectified Generation. Take a look at #43 on the annual Beloit Mindset List for the class of 2021: Having another child has always been a way... Read more

Linking Around: Violent Racism and Christian Conversion

August 16, 2017 By Jennifer Fitz

Following up from yesterday’s brief blurb on Joseph Pearce’s autobiography, over at the Register you can read his latest essay, “Charlottesville Through the Eyes of an Ex-White Supremacist.” At Aleteia, Patrick McNamera tells the history of Fr. John Markoe, who fought racism within and beyond the Church in the early 20th century. Longtime readers will recall I’ve shared in the past the conversion story of Nathan Bedford Forest: Nathan Bedford Forrest the fierce fighter, gambler, racist, and sinner….was a changed man.... Read more

Speaking of White Supremacists . . .

August 15, 2017 By Jennifer Fitz

. . . it is possible for people to change. Joseph Pearce’s autobiography Race With the Devil is worth a look if you want to know how that can happen. He gives a talk version of his story that makes a riveting presentation. Look him up and invite him to keynote your next event. Read more

Parsing the Data on “Childhood Gun Violence”

June 21, 2017 By Jennifer Fitz

Pediatrics has just released a study on childhood firearms injuries and deaths, and this CNN article is typical of the news coverage. Unless you read very carefully, deep into the article, you would get the idea that we are having an epidemic of young children shooting one another. (How do I feel about the stories like the one that opens the CNN article? As I’ve said on these pages: If you aren’t committed to keeping your firearms out of the hands... Read more

Pain Bleg Update –> How’s It Going, Jen?

June 20, 2017 By Jennifer Fitz

So if you post something like last month’s Name this pain bleg, it’s a good idea to update sooner, rather than later, when you rejoin the happy world of healthy-type people. Otherwise, every time you turn up some friend will peer at you with concern and ask gravely, “How are you?” If you are me, it’ll take you a minute to wonder why they are asking this way, because I’m somewhat forgetful in this regard. (My description of a particularly difficult bout of... Read more