Celestino di Tullo choked up when he saw Pope Francis approach his 17-year-old son, Alberto, during the Pope’s general audience yesterday. Pope Francis walked up to the boy, who has down syndrome, and embraced him. When Alberto pointed to the Popemobile, the Holy Father invited him up to take a look. Alberto looked it over and took a brief spin in the Pope’s white chair before returning to his family. Read more
I knew when I posted The New Prostitution: Surrogate Pregnancy that I would get a flurry of indignant responses and lies from people who buy and sell women’s bodies in this new, medical form of prostitution. I’ve been to this particular rodeo before. What I encountered then and now is what people who stand up for the human rights of women always encounter: Lying attacks from their exploiters, self-destructive defenses of their own dehumanization by self-hating women, and stories of the... Read more
Margaret Rose Realy, who blogs at Morning Rose Prayer Garden, is one of those people who always touches the soft part of your heart. Her blog is a gift, especially on the days when you need that warm and loving contact with a really good person. Margaret Rose posts a prayer for priests every Thursday. It’s a wonderful idea, which we should all follow in our own way. Priests need prayer. As things get worse for Christians, we are going... Read more
“We Catholics should pray together,” Pope Francis said in his Wednesday audience, “but we should also pray together with other Christians.” This is a message every Christian should take to heart. We don’t have to give up our doctrinal differences to know that Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth and Life. The most important thing is that we put Him at the center. When we do that, the differences we think are so important fade into the background where... Read more
Public education is a three tier system. The top tier of public education provides a top-flight education that feeds its students royal jelly. Kids from these schools are expected to go on to the top tier universities. Diplomas from top tier universities are tickets to entry into a distant ruling class that sends other Americans’ children to wars it doesn’t fight, passes laws that destroy other people’s lives and creates social mores that undercut the institutions by which their “lessors” create... Read more
Congress is once again fussing and fuming over how to use another festering problem that faces the American people as a club to beat one another with in partisan rumbles. This time, it’s the ridiculous cost of higher education, specifically the cost of student loans. The amount that people owe in student loans has doubled in the past five years. Those were the same five years when jobs vanished, wages for the jobs that were still around stayed flat... Read more
It’s official. A new Pew Research study indicates that media coverage of the gay marriage debate is strongly biased in favor of gay marriage. That’s in case you were wondering. Was anybody wondering? Personally, I think this falls into the “new study indicates that nuts roll downhill” kind of news. The study is based on coverage of the period a few weeks ago when the Supreme Court was hearing arguments on the issue of gay marriage. It turns out that... Read more
This is from the wonderful website MayFeelings.com. This particular prayer marathon was on May 17. But I don’t see why we can’t join in June. After all, God’s time allows all things. Read more
The two best things about writing at Patheos are the incredible readers I’ve met and the equally incredible fellow bloggers I’ve come to know. The Catholic Portal is chock full of witty, intellectual, thoughtful writers who awe me every day with their faithfulness to the faith, their kindness to one another and their overall awesomeness as writers. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, here comes Simcha Fisher. I have a friend who’s kind of like Simcha: 9... Read more
Patheos blogger Eve Tushnet wrote an excellent article about being gay and Catholic a while back. I think it provides food for thought for all of us since the truths she discusses apply equally to every person, gay or straight. Here is what she had to say: The biggest reason I don’t just de-pope myself is that I fell in love with the Catholic Church. Very few people just “believe in God” in an abstract way; we convert, or stay Christian, within... Read more
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