I think the extraordinary form Latin Mass is good and can help some to have a deeper relationship with Jesus. I wonder about how much attention we give it in online discussion though. I wrote about this on FrMatthewLC.com: This post is not set to give a definitive answer to the question. Instead, my intention is to give an approximation of how what percentage of Catholics at Sunday Mass in an average week in the USA are attending an extraordinary... Read more
We should celebrate both John Paul II’s and Francis’s consecrations of Russia to the Immaculate Heart. I wrote about this over on FrMatthewLC.com: It is great that Pope Francis will be consecrating Russia again on the 38th anniversary of John Paul II’s consecration. This news brought out several claiming that Russia had not been consecrated to fulfill the request at Fatima. The logic grounds for such claims are extremely flimsy and of necessity need to involve one of several colossally... Read more
Over on FrMatthewLC.com, I’ve posted a sensory-friendly Mass directory. I hope this helps autistics and families find a family without sensory issues. One of the biggest steps the Church needs to do now to include autistics is making a sensory-friendly Mass in every city. Asking a few autistics I know, I have found a number of locations that have such Masses. I looked at the US and Canada… Details: This is presented as-is and to-the-best-of-my-knowledge. I cannot gurantee the information... Read more
It is crazy what gets shared as “Christian” content. I keep running across people connecting autism and demons when that is just not true. Greg Locke is the latest. I wrote about him over on FrMatthewLC.com: Pastor Greg Locke has made a number of controversial statements. Recently, he was claiming autism is demonic. This is ridiculous. I will cover three things: summarizing his claim, and referring to why this is not demonic in three aspects: another person’s rebuke, some of... Read more
I wrote a piece over on FrMatthewLC.com in response to Card. Hollerich claiming the Church’s teaching on homosexuality is outdated. Hint: he does not understand it. Here is the start of it: Last week, another leader in the Church has suggested we should change our teaching on homosexuality. However, “should” implies there that the one doing the action is able. However, the Church has no power to change her teaching on homosexual relations. Let’s look at what the Cardinal said,... Read more
I wrote a piece over on FrMatthewLC.com about how Catholic media needs to start with being Catholic, with faith: Catholic media is part of the Church. It is often where those both inside and outside the Church get their information. This media tells what is happening in the Church and/or what the Catholic view about public events is. But so often, we have failed in that. I think like the role of the theologian, the role of Catholic media has... Read more
The March for Life 2022 happened today and people had plenty of amazing signs. I tried to filter through all of them on the ground for some amazing original signs. Over on FrMatthewLC.com, I posted 21 amazing signs. I have 3 above in an image sized to optimize for Facebook and Twitter link previews about there are 18 more. I include a creative commons license for the photos in that post as well. See the main post over on FrMatthewLC.com.... Read more
I wrote a bit about the issue with how the Church does copyright over on FrMatthewLC.com. The catechism and Church documents could be done a lot better. Eight Years ago, Brandon Vogt had a long piece on how much trouble it is that the Catechism and NAB (Bible translation used at Mass) are so expensive, and how hard they are to distribute. I think he is mainly right but I suggest maybe one slight variation. This came up as an issue as... Read more
I think this has been important for a while. The vaccine issues have made this even bigger, so I posted it over on FrMatthewLC.com: We need to distinguish between religious and conscience exceptions. They have been confused in the debate about exemptions from vaccine requirements. I think even a brief examination would find this equivocation faulty. This argument is that due to Catholic teaching on the freedom of conscience, any conscience exemption is a religious exemption. Given that freedom of... Read more
I posted a piece of technology ethics over on FrMatthewLC.com. Algorithms are good but not infallible. I consider issues of omniscience and treating humans as objects that have been brought up as ethical points regarding them. Here is a sample: I want to address two points from the article: algorithms vs Divine omniscience and algorithms and human dignity.[…] [1] This seems to be a misunderstanding of God, as God knows every particular future event while an algorithm only makes probabilistic... Read more
