Peter, Gate My Sheep Last week, the Diocese of Marquette brought out a new policy on the pastoral care of gay and trans people. It made something of a splash on Twitter, partly because it’s extraordinarily restrictive, especially for the latter. Some dioceses don’t allow trans people to serve in Catholic schools or ministries, but this is the first time I’ve heard of a bishop directing his priests to refuse baptism to someone for being trans: A person who publicly... Read more
Eve Tushnet, author of Gay and Catholic, Amends, and Punishment: A Love Story, has just released another book! This is a sequel to her partly-memoir debut work, Gay and Catholic, and deals more with the practical side of figuring out how to do Catholicism as a gay person without getting homophobia poisoning. It’s called Tenderness: A Gay Christian’s Guide to Unlearning Rejection and Experiencing God’s Extravagant Love. I rarely pre-order books, but I pre-ordered this one. It showed up last... Read more
Source Back in the spring of 2020, when there were a lot of anti-racist protests going on, my friend Billie and I had a conversation that has been stuck in my brain since. She and I both grew up in conservative, evangelical households—her parents were missionaries in Turkey—and we’ve both moved pretty far to the left politically. (The kinds of Christianity we each espouse have changed a lot too, mine partly by becoming Catholic, but not in ways that map... Read more
A week or two ago, I was leafing through an old journal I used to keep and came across the following. I didn’t date it, but I think it must have been in 2013 or thereabouts, after my ex and I broke up. Now we are without one another, and each crucified upon the absence of the other; our very lonelinesses coinhere. Our hearts were ripped, each from the other; and the wound is inconsolable: blood flows more freely than... Read more
Today is Trans Day of Remembrance, which commemorates trans people who’ve died by violence. I went to a brief memorial service for it, with a few friends: an Episcopal priest I know is the pastor of the Church of the Guardian Angel here in Baltimore, and about a dozen people gathered for some Scripture readings and prayers. The style was a lot more modern than I prefer, but it was nice to be with people for it. 2021 has been... Read more
For anyone familiar with the origin of the holiday, the fact that Guy Fawkes has become an anarchist meme is truly hilarious. For anyone who’s not, here’s the skinny. The Gunpowder Plot In 1605, England had been Protestant for a couple of generations, but with persistent (and, in some places, very prominent) Catholic minorities. Some people believed England could still be restored to communion with Rome by force of law, if a Catholic monarch could only be installed. The Act... Read more
Back in 2015, I published my first novel, Death’s Dream Kingdom. I am currently working on a sequel, The Book of Salt, which is set in London in 1888, the year of the Ripper. This is an excerpt from that book. Enjoy! For somewhere in that sacred island dwelt A nymph to whom all hoofèd satyrs knelt, At whose white feet the languid tritons poured Pearls, while on land they withered and adored. —John Keats, Lamia It was the twenty-third... Read more
It is spooky season, and there’s nothing Catholics do better than chopping up our dead friends and sharing them around. I think it has something to do with belief in the Resurrection; “O death, where is thy sting?” So, I decided to list thirteen saints I like, in order of how severely metal they are. 13. St. John the Divine John the Divine, or John the Theologian, was the author of the book of Revelation; he is widely identified (including... Read more
After an insanely busy couple of weeks at my day job, I am back on my proverbial bull! Now that spooky season has finally rolled around again, it’s time for me to ingest some good old horror content and regurgitate it for you here, like a mother bird feeding her brood in a viral video or something. I don’t know, this analogy kind of got away from me. The Netflix miniseries Midnight Mass, created and directed by Mike Flanagan (known... Read more
CONTENT WARNING This series discusses sexual violence and other forms of abuse. Please read with caution. Go here for Part One. The story of St. Maria Goretti is a fairly familiar one to many Catholics. For anyone who doesn’t know or could use a refresher, here’s the skinny. Born in Italy in 1890, her father’s early death forced the impoverished Gorettis to lodge with and work for another family, the Serenellis. The Serenellis’ son, Alessandro, who was 20 years old,... Read more
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