If it has seemed quiet around here, lately, that’s thanks to the Catholic Press Association, whose annual Catholic Media Conference (#CMC15) has lured me (and Deacon Greg and Denise Bossert) to Buffalo for an adventure. Tomorrow we all go home but tonight saw a number of Patheos Catholic bloggers honored by the CPA, beginning with Marge Fenelon being named as an Egan Fellow by Catholic Relief Services. As a Fellow she will be traveling to the Philippines with CRS to... Read more
Enjoy one of the best commentaries I’ve yet read on “Laudato Si'”, via guest Father Robert Barron Laudato Si’ and Romano Guardini by Very Rev. Robert Barron In 1986, after serving in a variety of capacities in the Jesuit province of Argentina, Jorge Mario Bergoglio commenced doctoral studies in Germany. The focus of his research was the great twentieth century theologian and cultural critic Romano Guardini, who had been a key influence on, among many others, Karl Rahner, Henri de... Read more
In her stupendous novel In This House of Brede, author Rumer Godden chronicles the pre-and-post-Second-Vatican-Council journey of a successful English professional woman who becomes an enclosed Benedictine nun. When the novel’s main character, Philippa Talbot, is asked by a co-worker, “but will you be able to be obedient, a stiff-necked creature like you?” she responds rather naively, “I shall find it restful.” For the most part, she does. After a lifetime of settling and deciding matters for others, Philippa takes... Read more
It’s a subject we can’t get enough of. Deacon Greg’s piece on the issue, from several years ago, always gets resurrected in summer, like a case of hay-fever. As that’s true, it’s not surprising that I’m still getting email and social media reaction to last week’s response to Bishop Tobin’s self-admitted ‘rant’ about the “hirsute flabmeisters” who populate Mass along with their children. Amid the commentary, someone put a blogpiece before my eyes that I thought really was the definitive... Read more
I like this meme, for the weekend, and thought your answers would be fun, too. As Julie says: include up to 3 answers each if you like. We won’t tell. If you’re religious, consider The Bible or other religious texts a gimme, particularly for question #15. Something to talk about with others over the summer BBQ, anyway. 1. Most treasured childhood book(s)? Harriet the Spy From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler A Wrinkle in Time Treasure... Read more
In his encyclical, Laudato Si, Pope Francis gets to the heart of the matter in the second paragraph, but most miss it on their way to the cherry-picking: The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life. This is why the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our... Read more
“Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!” declares the LORD. — Jeremiah 23:1 Look, I totally get what Bishop Tobin was going for here, and I think it is valid to remind people that an hour at Holy Mass is distinct from strolling the midway on the boardwalk at the Jersey Shore; that it warrants something better of us than water bottles and Bermuda shorts. But this is a destructive and unpastoral piece... Read more
Guest blogger Russell Shaw takes a look at the Pew Study, and the realities before us. Something to sharpen our thinking about “Why We Remain Catholic” – ES by Russell Shaw The first and arguably most important thing to say about the Pew Research Center’s new overview of American religion is that it offers no grounds for either complacency or panic. What it does instead is invite — perhaps demand — that it be taken very seriously by responsible church... Read more
It is only we who brood over our sins. God does not brood over them; God dumps them at the bottom of the sea. –Saint Benedict of Nursia, attributed Read more
Usually, we feature Father Robert Barron’s cogent and instructive thoughts over at The Font, but this new piece of his relates so well to what I wrote on the death of Objective Truth a few days ago, that I am slipping it in here, as a kind of companion piece or — more correctly — an enlargement and improvement on the first. Thanks, Father Barron! Last week, I wrote a piece on Bruce Jenner’s transformation into Caitlyn Jenner. I argued... Read more
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