The Secular Value of the Sacrament of Confession

June 16, 2021 By Fr. Matthew P. Schneider, LC

As some of you may know, my current full-time responsibility is writing a doctoral thesis on the right to privacy. To this end, I have read a bunch of secular thinkers on what privacy means. Recently, I was reading Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation by Sissela Bok. She has a chapter on the idea of confessing wrongs. In this chapter, she has a few things about confessing to other persons that are valuable for the sacrament, not just… Read more

Peter Singer: Eugenics Is Great! (YIKES!)

June 10, 2021 By Fr. Matthew P. Schneider, LC

One insidious aspect of the culture of death is the idea we can kill “undesirable” or “unsuitable” people. Peter Singer has supported killing those who have yet to achieve suitability or who’ve lost it never to regain it. He just wrote a new piece with coauthors defending eugenics. Let me summarize, then note why Singer matters. Peter Singer Defends Eugenics Everyone Agrees? The authors begin by noting that many contemporary secular bioethicists are eugenicists in practice. They note: Everyone who… Read more

Anti-Vaccine Catholics Break Moral Theology Principles

June 4, 2021 By Fr. Matthew P. Schneider, LC

Basic moral theology indicates that we can, and in most cases should, use the vaccines against COVID. I have repeatedly shown how remote this is. One article showed how almost common every medicine (except Gas-X) has been tested on a fetal cell line, just like the two main COVID vaccines in the USA. Jose Trasancos of COG for Life critiqued this. I will respond below. I will begin and end with a bit of the big picture, showing how this… Read more

Vaccines: 2 Moral Issues But Only 1 Discussed

April 23, 2021 By Fr. Matthew P. Schneider, LC

While Catholics in the USA have been extremely concerned over a rather minor issue regarding COVID vaccines, another – probably larger – ethical issue in their regard has arisen. It is clear that Catholics can (& generally should) vaccinate against COVID. The concern is issues of rich countries not sharing with the poor. Let’s examine both the exaggerated and the under-appreciated issue. Super-Remote Cooperation Over the past months, the most viral question among many Catholics I know has been about… Read more

Comparing COVID Vaccine to Other Vaccines

April 21, 2021 By Fr. Matthew P. Schneider, LC

For decades, Catholic ethicists have approved of several vaccines in the USA which have some connection to abortion. It is worth comparing these to COVID vaccines. I think that given they can ethically be used, a fortiori the main COVID vaccines can be used. I will compare them on various grounds. I focus on rubella and chickenpox here although Hepatitis A has similar issues to the two of them. Here is a summary of the results. (Sources in text.) … Read more

The Inconsistency of Moral Lines in Cooperation (Lincare Quarterly)

April 18, 2021 By Fr. Matthew P. Schneider, LC

I just ran across a Licare Quarterly Editorial from February that cited me. I think Barbara Golder expands on what I said about remote cooperation and adds to it. So many make odd lines where they will not accept super-remote connection in a vaccine but accept far-less-remote cooperation for a far less key good than disease prevention. Dr. Golder notes, I was, for example, struck by the vigor of discussions on Facebook, in which the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were deemed… Read more

Pro-Life & Disability Rights: Often on the Same Side but Not Always

April 16, 2021 By Fr. Matthew P. Schneider, LC

I’ve written before about how disability rights groups and pro-life groups support human dignity in many of the same ways. There, I suggested that on issues like assisted suicide / euthanasia and abortion after prenatal diagnosis. A recent set of rallies in Connecticut, however, show how this can sometimes break down. Two Rallies in Connecticut The Hartford Courant reports: Disability rights activists and the lobbying arm of the Catholic Church in Connecticut have long been allies in the fight against… Read more

From Founding a Startup to Deloitte to the Convent

April 9, 2021 By Fr. Matthew P. Schneider, LC

Montserrat Medina Martínez was an up-and-coming woman in Spanish business. Despite being only 36, she has gone from success to success professionally. With a scholarship from Stanford, she created a Silicon Valley startup that she later sold to Pay Pal for several million and despite her youth, she was signed as a Deloitte partner. Fame, money, international recognition… She had everything, except happiness. After a time of discernment, she saw that God was calling her to use her talents in a different manner: she decided to… Read more

Artificial food, sex and drugs give us an artificial high—and they’re getting in the way of our search for God

April 8, 2021 By Fr. Matthew P. Schneider, LC

Back in 2019, I wrote a little reflection on organic spirituality in an artificial world. I discussed the whole relationship between how food sweet beyond what is natural, pornography that presents sexuality beyond what humans would naturally encounter, drugs, etc. all morph our perspective of the true good. They provide an unnaturally high level of dopamine and endorphins. It makes it hard to enjoy genuine natural goods like an apple or normal marital relations. I discuss how these things damage us… Read more

Autism Awareness Day on Good Friday

April 2, 2021 By Fr. Matthew P. Schneider, LC

Today, we have two days seemingly in conflict. We commemorate the suffering and death of Our Lord. The secular world also has the annual world autism awareness day. I am a Christians first so obviously Good Friday is a focus but as I prayed today, I was struck by an odd connection to these two days. Our Suffering This Lent, I’ve been going through Henri Nouwen’s Show Me the Way: Daily Lenten Readings in my prayer. Today he notes the… Read more

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