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

Issues with (Br) Alexis Bugnolo, Ordo Militaris & FromRome

March 26, 2021 By Fr. Matthew P. Schneider, LC

Alexis Bugnolo runs FromRome, Ordo Militaris, and Scholasticum online. The first is meant to be a news site, the second to eventually be a military order protecting persecuted Christians, and the third a university-level academic program. However, Alexis is not a brother as he claims. All three organizations also have significant issues. This piece will define a religious brother, show Bugnolo is not one, look at his reliability as a source, then deal with the three sites individually. Defining a… Read more

Quantifying Cooperation in or Appropriation of Evil

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

Some Catholics have questions about COVID vaccines based on the very remote connection to abortion. Abortion is obviously a heinous crime and grave matter. We can never commit procured abortion, period. However, there is a huge difference between abortion the extremely remote cooperation in evil involved in vaccines. Moral theology is not strictly quantifiable and ethical theories that reduce all to consequences alone like utilitarianism or proportionalism are condemned. Veritatis Splendor (78), against mere measuring of consequences, affirms: “The morality… Read more

The Case of Hearing an Abusive Priest’s Confession

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

When I did my License in Theology, my thesis was 100 pages on when absolution should be deferred in confession. When a few months later there was a coloquim on clerical abuse not far away at Villanova, I prepared a presentation. It took large sections from my thesis, but was on a more specific case of an abusive priest coming to confession. Now, a year and a half later, a version of this talk has been published in Homiletic &… Read more

Defaulting to Filtering Pornography Is a Good Idea

March 17, 2021 By Fr. Matthew P. Schneider, LC

Utah was in the news this week a new bill that requires all new devices come with internet filtering pre-installed. Adults would be allowed to remove these filters but minors could not. In the past, I had suggested similar ideas and this seems to definitely be a positive step. Unfortunately, the online pro-porn lobby does not want even this change in default settings. We need to fight to keep pornography away from kids and allow adults to easily avoid it…. Read more

Pope Francis’s Interreligious Speech in Iraq: Top Lines

March 6, 2021 By Fr. Matthew P. Schneider, LC

This morning, Pope Francis gave a speech to an interreligious meeting on the plain of Ur. Abraham lived in Ur until God called him. The focus of the meeting seemed to be the three main religions that trace themselves back to Abraham – Jews, Christians, and Muslims. As I read it, a few lines jumped out so maybe me pulling out these lines will help those who haven’t the time to read it all. (I started this as a Twitter… Read more

You Can Use the Johnson & Johnson Vaccine in Some Cases

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

Recently, the FDA approved the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine (emergency use authorization). This brings up the ethics of it for many Catholics. This is the third COVID vaccine approved by the FDA and it is different biologically and morally from the prior two. Morally, we should generally prefer the other two options available so far, but this one is not morally forbidden. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine can be used if it is the only option or only way to… Read more

get the latest updates from

Through Catholic Lenses

and the Patheos

Catholic

Channel

Browse Our Archives

TRENDING AT PATHEOS Catholic

view all Catholic blogs