Ask yourself, would you want most of today’s bishops and priests having some oversight over the government and legal and political process? We’re talking men who can’t even protect the children in their care and who oversaw decades of child rape while turning a blind eye. Additionally, the typical bishop tends to make any government bureaucrat look stunningly competent. Read more
It is notable that while the Church has often been on the forefront in issues of justice, economics, and social responsibility, it has regularly failed as an arbiter of genuinely person-centered, Gospel-based sexual ethics, and has certainly failed as a protector of those at the mercy of predators. Read more
Are women made in the image of Christ or not? If not, has the whole Catholic teaching tradition been wrong and is Genesis 1 wrong? If so, is Inter Insigniores wrong? And finally, what do men at Mass see when they look at a woman, if they find it difficult to see the image of Christ in her? Read more
But what I am seeing right now is a movement in Catholicism to make it a quasi-European cult of authority, militarism, sexual repression, and patriarchy. The reactions to the Amazonian Synod, culminating with the theft and desecration of two sacred images presented to the pope by indigenous Catholics, make it clear that there is a significant faction that wants the church to be more like a social club for little wannabe Emperor Octavians: us only, no foreigners, rule of law, obsessiveness over purity. Read more
There’s a certain irony in the fact that our unrestrained domination, on the basis of our claim to be “lords of the earth” with “dominion over nature” has now put us into a position where we can't simply retreat and take a neutral position; we are morally obligated to labor to maintain delicate balances, or even restore balances we have upset. Read more
We are missing out. We are losing the opportunity to learn from Catholic artists who have explored the sacramental through mythologies of the global south, the ecclesial through the tribal. We are specifically missing the social justice dimension of the Catholic imagination, when we ignore the writings of those for whom the cry to heaven for justice is real. Read more
My faith became intrinsically interwoven with Fr Sam. To reject him was to reject God. I was dependent on him. I was dependent on the God he brought me to know. To leave one and reject the other was not possible. At this point, the abuse was unstoppable. Read more
How do we find unity? We try our best to love one another and engage Jewish tradition and wisdom as we best understand it. Judaism is much more than just a theology, it’s a people, a community, and a set of commitments. Read more
If they really believe racism is behind abortion, and really want to stop it - wouldn’t they oppose racism? Instead of exacerbating it, voting for it, and manifesting it in their personal lives. Read more
We speak often of “rape culture” and assume this refers to frat houses, to football players getting a pass on assault, to the objectification of women in fashion ads. And, it does. But at the heart of rape culture is this assumption: that whatever happened it is her fault. Not just what happened in the dorm room, in the back alley, in the basement - but what happened on a broad cultural level. If the civilization is violent and debased, how convenient not to blame those who actually, legally, control it on ever level. How convenient for them, the powerful ones, to blame the women. Read more
suspended in her jar
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