A recent HuffPo article by Sylvia Bass, “To the Lady Ashamed of Being Pregnant With Her Fourth,” reminded me of a piece I wrote a few years ago. Bass writes: Countless strangers in grocery stores have seen me with my three little ones and impertinently asked me how many children I am planning on having. I don’t know, person I have never met before. Tell you what: How about next week, I will bring my husband here and all three... Read more
My fellow bloggers here at Patheos have done a fantastic job highlighting the various problems surrounding the news of the Home (a house for unwed mothers and children) in Ireland, where the bodies of 800 infants, dead many years, were found in a septic tank in 1995. I’m still unclear why it’s news now, almost twenty years after the finding. Nevertheless, it invites comment. Each of the bloggers points to the communal aspect of sin, all sin, which brings to... Read more
Extreme violence has always bothered me. Forget trying to get me to watch a really violent film. I will have both of my ears stopped with my hands or a nearby cushion. But violence against women seems to me particularly unseemly and not just in an ungentlemanly sense. The movie The Passion of the Christ gave me a clue about this inclination. In the scene where Christ is being flogged, the character of the devil enters in a figure that... Read more
Oh wait, they aren’t. Then how to explain this recent child porn bust in the New York area? At least 70 people were arrested. The evidence collected included: [T]he seizure of nearly 600 desktop and laptop computers, tablets, smartphones and other devices containing a total of 175 terabytes of storage. The critique surrounding the clergy abuse scandals in the Catholic Church has been largely based on the celibacy requirement for priests in the Roman Catholic Church. The reasoning was somewhat... Read more
The picture below was taken early in the morning on November 9, 2001, the day after I received The Pontifical Academies Award for my dissertation on women, gender, and the Church. In many ways, this picture was years in the making. Most of my family and several of my friends came with me to Rome for the award. Unfortunately, they were not presented to the Holy Father when I received my award. Later that day, due to the persistence of... Read more
Ok, at this point in Lent, our resolutions are not unlike our New Year’s resolutions. We start out with good intentions and, well, you know the rest. Sometimes the ashes on our foreheads last longer…Nevertheless, I’m offering two that each one of us can embrace and which will serve the Church and the world. But I’m getting ahead of myself. This past weekend, I attended the LA Religious Ed Congress. I know, many of you thought people like me should... Read more
This post is going to be a bit rambling as I want to mention several different things. But most importantly, happy anniversary to Pope Francis on the first anniversary of his pontificate. I was out for a walk, convinced that I didn’t need to be glued to the television because it would be quite some time before the cardinals reached a consensus. (Shows you how dialed into the Holy Spirit I was/am…) I was on the phone talking to Teresa Tomeo... Read more
It’s old news that Facebook now offers 54 new gender options for users to describe themselves. 54. Who knew? Last week, I commented on the gender agenda in Poland and the criticism of the Catholic Church’s opposition to it. In the gender discussions that will no doubt continue, I want to continue to emphasize two points: Gender is a fluid concept. Sex is not. The sex of an individual is determined at conception. Either the human person is born with... Read more
Oh that ignorant Catholic Church. Once again, it has a different view from those who preach “diversity.” The Catholic Church in Poland has come under attack for apparently challenging “gender workshops,” a type of sex-ed class in the schools that present children with “alternatives” to permanent monogamous heterosexual relations. According to an article in Our Sunday Visitor, the circumstances are not quite clear. Nevertheless, in a column for the theguardian.com, Agata Pyzik attacks the Church in a way that makes it... Read more
I’ll be on the Drew Mariani Show, hosted by Wendy Wiese at 4.30 ET today to discuss the theology of women. A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece prompted by Pope Francis’ implicit call for a theology of woman. Generated a variety of responses. Check them out and guess which is my favorite… Simcha Fisher offered some much appreciated support, too. As did Elizabeth Scalia on Facebook. I’ll just post her comment here. She cites Simcha’s article: Look, Catholic women... Read more
Pia de Solenni
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