Nienstedt Resigns After Abuse Cover-Up: The Flawed Element

June 15, 2015 By Elizabeth Scalia

Our stomachs have been turning for a long time. We keep asking, “when does this nightmare end”? We’ve thrown out bad priests and put some excellent protocols in place — protocols that perhaps the public schools in NYC, and other locales should consider adopting, because they work. But great protocols don’t work if the human elements do not apply them. Thankfully, wheels are continuing to turn and bishop accountability has begun. This morning comes news that Archibishop John Clayton Nienstedt... Read more

Hillary Clinton Channels April Ludgate

June 14, 2015 By Elizabeth Scalia

I know I am not the only person to have found Hillary Clinton’s delivery of her Campaign Reset speech to have been weird. On social media I have seen her oddball cadences and peculiar emphesis labeled “wooden” or “stilted” and even robotic. But she wasn’t robotic. I kept listening to her speak, and thinking, “what is this reminding me of?” And it eluded me, until — distracted by real life — I finally gave up thinking about it, but only... Read more

TransRace, TransSex, TransAbled: Objective Truth and Self-Marginalization

June 12, 2015 By Elizabeth Scalia

Objective Truth is dead. It has been slain by human feelings — by a soft tyranny of sentimentalism which dictates that how a person feels about anything now defines its reality. The last nail in the coffin of Objective Truth comes to us via the story of NAACP leader Rachel Dolezal, a white woman who is “trans-raced”. As such, she demands to be counted among the truly marginalized and victimized, and if that means helping things along, well, that might... Read more

Pope Approves Tribunal to Investigate Bishops re Abuse Responses

June 11, 2015 By Elizabeth Scalia

For the most part, I think this is the right thing to do. Francis X. Rocca reports: ROME— Pope Francis ordered the establishment of a special court to try bishops for mishandling cases of clerical sex abuse, filling a widely decried gap in the Vatican’s approach to the problem. The Vatican on Wednesday said the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which already holds responsibility for cases of sex abuse by priests, will also “judge bishops with regard to... Read more

Christopher West Tells “Why” and Cordial Catholic Tells “How”

June 11, 2015 By Elizabeth Scalia

Christopher West chimes in on Why he remains a Catholic: First, I want to acknowledge that one can certainly find enough folly and corruption in the Church to want to leave (or never enter). But the folly and corruption in the Church is not unique to Catholics. It’s found everywhere human beings are found. If I were to leave the Church in response to the folly and corruption within her, I would soon find I’ve taken that folly and corruption... Read more

Hating God Was So Much Worse Than Being Catholic

June 10, 2015 By Elizabeth Scalia

On social media, people are still responding to our invitation to explain why the heck they remain in this challenging, counter-cultural, sometimes counter-intuitive-seeming church. Here at Patheos, a couple more bloggers have answered the question, as well, and today we hear from two surprising sources who speak of having hated the whole notion of belief. Margaret Rose Realy gives a searingly personal account: At ten I stormed through a darkened church, past the communion rail and, standing in the sanctuary,... Read more

“Love Itself is Knowledge”: Melinda Selmys Comes to Patheos!

June 10, 2015 By Elizabeth Scalia

We’ll be rolling out several new bloggers over the course of the summer, and we’re very happy to get started by introducing you to the busy writer Melinda Selmys. We’re sure she will enliven the conversation on faith here in the Catholic channel! Melinda describes her life as “the Divine equivalent of a Monty Python sketch,” and once you get to know her you will appreciate the line and the sentiment. Given the title of her well received book, Sexual... Read more

Climb Down from a Catholic Ledge: For every Koch, there is a Sarah

June 10, 2015 By Elizabeth Scalia

Participants in New York City’s June 1-4 “Sacra Liturgia 2015” gathering received a letter from Cardinal Robert Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. Cardinal Sarah was appointed to that position by Pope Francis in November of 2014. The letter reads in part: When The Holy Father, Pope Francis, asked me to accept the ministry of Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, I asked: “Your Holiness, how... Read more

The Surest Way to Be Happy? Take the Diamond Path

June 9, 2015 By Elizabeth Scalia

Pondering this story, yesterday, about how focusing less on your own concerns and more on the needs of others leads to happiness, I recalled a childhood episode worth revisiting*: Recently I came across two items which superficially would seem to have nothing at all to do with each other. The first was an advertisement: a religious sister was promoting a women’s retreat about “finding oneself” and “coming to a place of ‘centered’ peace.” Highlighted within the ad was a sort... Read more

On Happiness, Science Agrees with Jesus and the Saints

June 8, 2015 By Elizabeth Scalia

I mean, that’s how I’m taking this: Now, after decades of research and a dozen clinical trials, researchers at the world-renowned Mayo Clinic, say they’ve actually cracked the code to being happy, and published it in a handbook. Dr. Amit Sood led the research and says the first and foremost way to be happy is to focus our attention. “You can choose to live focusing on what is not right in your life,” Dr. Sood said. […] “So for example,... Read more