Your weekly apocalypse, in nine points: 1. The US House of Representatives voted 400-1 to allow religious services at the numerous worldwide locations of the American military industrial complex. 2. No one knows who voted against the bill, but rumor has it that it was an observant Quaker who lacks a sense of absurdity. 3. Alabama (4-0) beats Georgia State (0-4) 45-3 with their training staff. 4. Pope Francis is set to interview himself next week, on psychoanalysis, confession,... Read more
Christ’s passion begins with the simple fact that he knows he is the Son of God, and people routinely treat him otherwise. For the human person, this is a perverse form of suffering. It gnaws at our most potent temptations: pride, self-pity, vanity, envy, despair, selfishness, imbalance of every kind. This is metaphysical conceit. It is not born of falsehood, nor deceit. It begins with deep internal conviction, a self-knowledge of what is true. “I know that I love my... Read more
This post is a part of the interfaith blog roundtable on at Patheos, hosted by Chris Henrichsen, on the question, “Are Mormons Christian?” That, to me, is a better question than asking if Mormons are Christian. By better I mean better in every way. Asking if Mormons are Christians feeds into old prejudices and stereotypes. It does little to shed light on Mormon theology, and it puts individual Mormons on the defensive. It is also a supremely uninteresting question, sort of like... Read more
This post is a part of the interfaith blog roundtable on at Patheos, hosted by Chris Henrichsen, on the question, “Are Mormons Christian?” I am not so sure that, if what we mean by ‘Christian’ is the dual belief in Christological and Trinitarian mysteries, that it is meaningful for a Mormon to call herself a Christian. I am not a Muslim, if what we mean by ‘Muslim’ is the belief that Muhammad is the prophet of God — Allah, in arabic. I... Read more
Reading and listening have become postmodern. The idea of reading with any sense of fidelity has been all but lost. In the news-cycle, we feed on half-digested items like a person who never listens, who only listens long enough to come up with a critical response. I often struggle with this in my own academic work, and also in my teaching. A student once asked me, “What do I read for?” — my reply shocked him and even me: “Read... Read more
Pope Francis was interviewed, over the course of three meetings, in August. The translation from Italian to English is now published at America. Here is an excerpt from the full manuscript: “I see clearly,” the pope continues, “that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured... Read more
It’s been just over a year now that I’ve been blogging at Patheos. That year has coincided with our relocation to North Dakota. The winters here are long and brutal. Without Patheos — you the readers, and the beautiful motley crew of writers at the Catholic Channel, Los Patheosi — I don’t know what I would’ve done. Thank you. I should especially thank Elizabeth Scalia, who gave me my shot and who puts up with my antics and promotes my stuff.... Read more
<Editor’s note: the original post had six reasons but then two of them seemed to be true so it was reduced down to four.> Most students in college would be much happier if they could buy their credentials at K-Mart and then train on the job and get started. I once polled a class of young men, asking them if they would rather let me hit them with a baseball bat and get an A or try to earn one... Read more
The weekly apocalypse, in fourteen points: 1. World War III was almost at a rolling boil, and children smelled salty aromas of blood in the streets, as Obama poised himself to lead the free world into another mighty struggle against something, but Miley Cyrus licked cold steel and roused Vladimir Putin from his Russian cave. 2. Reporters tell us that Putin mounted his grizzly boar, foaming and farting, and rode through the night to his manly and very heterosexual ghost... Read more
I think I fasted on Saturday. It didn’t feel very penitential, but I was also very busy and didn’t have much time to do a good job. But I did the basics. Followed the rules. I was teaching a course in Fargo, an hour south of Grand Forks, for a doctoral cohort of school administrators. The reading for the day was Marx. I like to pray for things with Gethsemane in mind. Job, too. I can only imagine the apostles,... Read more
Sam Rocha
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