My friend Laura Roberts is hosting a fundraiser for our mutual friend Natalie, who’s going through treatment for breast cancer just now. She writes: Natalie has just started months of chemotherapy. Wednesday, July 29th was her first day of the next step in this long journey. Please consider donating to help offset some of her family’s expenses. While I’d love to see even more, if we hit a thousand dollars, I plan to dye my hair pink and if we... Read more
The Catholic faith is difficult to believe. Oh sure, we can give assent to the parts that come naturally to us. We each have our natural gifts in that area — some of us glom onto theology, others to kindness and generosity, others to asceticism. Add to that a bit of struggle, a bit of overcoming, and we arrive at the riskiest moment: The moment when we think ourselves Catholic. Think of it like climbing a mountain. If you... Read more
If there’s one thing the latest Planned Parenthood sting videos have brought to light, it’s just how terrible people are at thinking about things. Lest there be any doubt, I am firmly opposed to the chopping up and selling of any person, regardless of age or residence. And for that reason, we need to talk about some of the nasty fallacies people have been flinging around the internet. 1. The Evil You Are Exposing Did Not Make My Short List... Read more
A friend posed a question in a private forum, and I’d like to share my response. The original question was: Innocent question from my 7-year-old after talking to the older kids about what’s going on with Planned Parenthood: “Why doesn’t the president stop them?” She can’t seem to wrap her mind around how this is legal. Some thoughts before we begin: Evil is going to find your children. It is neither necessary nor desirable to introduce evil to your children, enough... Read more
Three follow-ups re: Family Honor: I had some questions about Family Honor that I’d like to answer for anyone else wondering the same thing. I just got an update on the online course in my inbox, which I share below. Here’s a round-up of chastity resources I put together for CatholicMom.com. FYI – I’m not an official spokesperson for the group, I’m just a fangirl. My opinions are purely my own. First question from a reader: Has anyone done this in... Read more
Time for another cultural update from the backwards southerners, and to get us started let’s hear from the guy so southern and backward nobody can stand him: 129. In order to continue providing employment, it is imperative to promote an economy which favours productive diversity and business creativity. For example, there is a great variety of small-scale food production systems which feed the greater part of the world’s peoples, using a modest amount of land and producing less waste, be... Read more
In my reading this past week I was struck by a passage that seemed to sum up the state of the Catholic Church in the United States today. It’s describing a completely different time and place, but if we switch out a few words (noted by italics), we get: Indeed, the effects of doctrinal and liturgical conflict were even more far-reaching than changing religious attitudes and parish membership patterns suggest. A decade of “enforting themselves,” of hearing the horror stories of refugees and the... Read more
So I spent NFP Awareness Week cleaning my house. Not just ordinary cleaning, but epic, Biblically-proportioned it’s as if we’re trying to get our life in order cleaning. Not done yet, but one can only make so many decluttering decisions before it’s necessary to run away and ride roller coasters all day, which I also did. There are scripture verses about this. But fear not, we do NFP all year around here. Technically the bishops do, too, but probably they try... Read more
Patheos is hosting a symposium on “The Future of Faith in America” and you can read the Catholic highlights at Elizabeth Scalia’s place. I don’t do predictions, but I do like strategy, so let’s talk about that. We Have Everything Going For Us If we want it, the Catholic faith could be on the verge of a renewal to knock the socks off all the other renewals. In our favor: Being Catholic today is weird and countercultural. It’s not something you... Read more
Or a coconut? Pineapple, I think. Yeah, pineapple. Good thing I pre-prayed today’s Gospel, because I was getting nothing at all when I went back at it this morning. Conveniently I had already come up with just what I needed to hear. The introduction, which just happened to match this morning’s state of mind: Take my yoke upon you . . . and you will find rest. Lord, I am willing to suffer anything for You. I offer up all... Read more
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