Babies on Planes

December 21, 2022 By Jennifer Fitz

I want to comment on an essay from a distressed air-traveling parent, but without picking on that parent. The concept underpinning this parent’s torment is that somehow the other people on the airplane are paying for a “peaceful” (read: “adults-only”) voyage, and thus the presence of children on board infringes on the experience the adult passengers have supposedly purchased. My comment is this: Commercial airlines are public transportation. I understand all too well that they are expensive public transportation. This gives... Read more

Making Sense of Fr. Pavone’s Laicization

December 19, 2022 By Jennifer Fitz

I want to make a few brief comments on the news about Fr. Frank Pavone being dismissed from the clerical state. First: Regardless of where you stand on the topic (if anywhere), The Pillar has a detailed, non-sensational, fact-checked rundown of what has happened, including a review of the technicalities of the judicial process involved. If all these details of canon law are new to you, take it slowly. But please do read it, because it is not just annoying (for all... Read more

Why Your Doctor Thinks It’s Just Depression

December 15, 2022 By Jennifer Fitz

From an article at Stat on physician burnout: Physicians have among the highest rates of suicide of any profession, and almost half of them develop depression by the end of training. As physician and writer Elisabeth Poorman persuasively argues, depression and suicide are occupational hazards of practicing medicine. Sometimes you go to the doctor with worrisome symptoms, and the doctor decides it’s just anxiety or depression. For example: Revenge of the gaslit patients: Now, as scientists, they’re tackling Ehlers-Danlos syndromes How Unconscious Bias Almost Killed My Friend... Read more

Serious Answers to ‘Why the Far Right is Fixated on Drag Queens’

December 10, 2022 By Jennifer Fitz

Sometimes The Atlantic runs thoughtfully-researched articles from varying points of view, so I was curious to see what “Why the Far Right is Fixated on Drag Queens” had to say. What I was hoping to find was a thesis along the lines of, “Those sexually-obsessed conservatives are backwards and wrong, but here are some of the reasons that transgender issues are particularly important to them . . . ” and an exploration (from a left-leaning point of view) of conservative priorities.... Read more

A Movie Not to Miss: Devotion

December 2, 2022 By Jennifer Fitz

Last month my movie-night girl and I went to see Top Gun: Maverick at the second-run theater. It was, unsurprisingly, a mostly-anodyne tour of the tropes, actually-entertaining in the second half. But I give it credit for one thing: When we were struggling this month to find any movie, anywhere, that we wanted to see in a theater, my girl hopped right on the Devotion train after viewing the trailer. Last night I did my best to keep a straight face... Read more

Resisting the Urge to Politicize Criminal Violence

November 21, 2022 By Jennifer Fitz

Yesterday I shared on social media a legal-opinion piece on a highly contentious social issue. Within minutes, as I continued scrolling through my feed-reader, I saw that there had been a horrific shooting that appeared to be targeting the opposition-group in that same issue. As of this writing, I haven’t seen specific information about the shooter and what that person’s motivations might have been. That’s just as well, because: None of the victims of that shooting deserved to die. No... Read more

When “Medical Assistance in Dying” Comes After You

November 16, 2022 By Jennifer Fitz

Canada’s “Medical Assistance in Dying” program is in the disability news as “mental illness” has been added to the list of rationales for state-approved suicide — despite the acknowledged difficulty of distinguishing the suicidal patients from the ones who just want suicide. I’d like to back up today and talk very frankly about the temptation to suicide when experiencing any of the conditions, physical or mental, that Canada’s euthanasia policies cover. Proponents of assisted suicide make it sound as if... Read more

Catch Me Tonight on The Journey Home!

November 14, 2022 By Jennifer Fitz

Update: Here’s the episode link! Just learned this morning that my episode of The Journey Home airs tonight! You can watch it live (free) online at EWTN’s website, or on TV if you receive EWTN with your cable service. For the watch-party experience, Matt Swaim writes: I’ll be monitoring the show and adding a few links from the @chnetwork account using the tag #JHprogram, in case you want to follow along on Twitter. I cannot say enough times how much fun I had... Read more

Could the Pope Be Black?

October 26, 2022 By Jennifer Fitz

This week I volunteered to answer a question posed to the Catholic Channel writers: Could the Pope be Black? Answer: Yes. Let’s narrow that question further: Could the next pope be Black, without any crazy circumstances, just a normal papal election producing that result? Answer: Yes. There’s no dogmatic (set in stone as a matter of faith and morals) way for choosing the Bishop of Rome, but the current procedures are this: There are (supposed to be) up to 120 cardinals... Read more

Parsing Out the Physical from the Psychological in Chronic Illness

October 17, 2022 By Jennifer Fitz

Today I want to dive into a study brought to my attention by a usually very sensible health and fitness blogger, but who erroneously interpreted the results as evidence “long covid” might be primarily psychological in origin. Here’s the study: “Psychophysiologic symptom relief therapy (PSRT) for post-acute sequelae of COVID-19: a non-randomized interventional study.” Click on the “full text” tab to read it for free (you can also download the PDF if you’d like to save a copy). It’s a... Read more