CONTENT WARNING This series discusses sexual violence and other forms of abuse. Please read with caution. Catholicism has a consent problem. I’m not talking here about the abuse crisis; at least, not in itself. I do think what I’m addressing has contributed to the abuse crisis, but it’s broader than that. Catholics seem to have serious difficulty grasping the fact that rape is not a sexual sin. What the F***? To explain what I mean here, let’s return to the... Read more
Photo by Michael Foran Twenty years ago today. It’s strange that this anniversary feels so normal; probably because it’s been so remorselessly present in American culture all this time. We have spent the last twenty years at war. That’s all of my teens, plus my whole adult life, after a decade of peace in the 1990s (and that was after an even longer interval that succeeded the Vietnam War). We’ve seen mounting suspicion of Muslims—we went from George W. Bush,... Read more
August has been a busy month, and I haven’t had time to begin writing the new series I have planned. In lieu of that, here is another selection from the book I am currently working on, this time from the epilogue. §§§ Our identity is in Christ, see. No, we don’t feel the need to bring that up with heterosexuals, but why would we? Straight people don’t invest our whole identity in our sexuality! I mean, yes, we talk pretty... Read more
I. Cardinal Burke has apparently been diagnosed with coronavirus. I urge my readers to pray for his well-being. I don’t know anything more about his circumstances, so I’m not going to say any more than that. II. An old custom that’s seeing some revival of late is St. Michael’s Lent. I quite like this practice. The period between Assumption (this coming Sunday) and the Feast of St. Michael (September 29th) is a little over forty days, and apparently St. Francis... Read more
Go here for Part I and Part II. Repenting of centuries of racism and genocide is not an easy thing to do. Part of the problem is that it’s kind of vague; another is that the things we usually think of here, like the trans-Atlantic slave trade, are far enough in the past that it’s difficult to connect with them on an emotional level. They not only aren’t things we personally did, they aren’t things our grandparents did. Repentance is... Read more
Arthuriana I have always loved the Arthurian cycle. It has everything: history, magic, chivalry, romance, tragedy, and the greatest relic in Christendom. And the mysterious ending, the king who has disappeared but not died, is perfect. Charles Williams’ Taliessin Through Logres and The Region of the Summer Stars are some of my favorite books of poetry, as well as my favorite Arthurian literature. Arthurian films, in my experience, are generally something of a disappointment. I want to like them. But... Read more
Another Day, Another Scandal I said at the beginning of my last post that Catholic media was abuzz with responses to Traditionis Custodes. Unluckily for me, I wrote that piece on a lazy enough schedule that by the time I published it, we’d moved on to the next scandal: the misconduct, resignation, and exposure of one Msgr. Jeffrey Burrill, former General Secretary of the USCCB. The exposure was at the hands of The Pillar, a Catholic periodical run by two... Read more
Getting the Facts Straight Catholic media has been abuzz for the last several days over the publication of Traditionis Custodes. This document is a motu proprio1 restricting the celebration of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass (EF), also known as the traditional Latin Mass (TLM), the pre-Vatican II Mass, the Vetus Ordo, and a few other names besides. The official translation of the document can be found here on the Vatican’s website, with an accompanying letter from Pope Francis here. A lot... Read more
A Bit of Background More often than not I like Commonweal; I’ve even seen one or two of my friends publish there. However, this afternoon, I read a piece that was so poorly reasoned I couldn’t let it go. Professor John Thiel of Fairfield University contributed “The New Donatism” to Commonweal, addressing the ongoing controversy about whether President Biden should be permitted to receive the Eucharist. The question is academic: Cardinal Gregory, the current Archbishop of Washington, has already stated... Read more
What Do a National Repentance? I’ve been giving more thought to this post. If we want to practice national repentance, then as Catholics, our model is the sacrament of penance. Seems straightforward enough, right? However, in order to actually put that into practice, we’re going to need to muscle our way through some pretty uncomfortable stuff. That’s kind of how this works—repentance means (among other things) accepting responsibility, and that’s an uncomfortable thing to do. It’s a blow to our... Read more
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