This week I’ve been back home recuperating from a particularly overwhelming conference season packed into the past couple of months: two events at which I tabled for Consistent Life, two I attended out of my own personal interests, and a regional weekend workshop that happened to be on my way back home. All of these events drew very different crowds, and within each one I had the paradoxical feeling of being both at home and somewhat out of place, in... Read more
In this post I want to continue my episodic narrative of how I came to my views on a consistent life ethic. You can read part I here. Also, I want to apologize in advance if you are writing comments and are not seeing them or I do not respond quickly. I am on the road and do not have regular access to a computer, and I do not have my list of passwords with me. War, peace and non-violence... Read more
I have been a member of the Consistent Life Network for more than 25 years. I joined in graduate school, back when it was still called the Seamless Garment Network. Cardinal Bernadin popularized the idea of a “seamless garment” ethic, (according to Wikipedia, Eileen Egan coined the term in the 70s); his goal was to get the Catholic pro-life community in the US to understand “pro-life” in the fuller context of Catholic Social Teaching. The organization itself is not Catholic,... Read more
I want to ramble a bit on the Lectionary and then pose a question I hope our readers can answer. I have not done this in a while (for the last times I can recall, see here and here), but I have started serving as a lector again, and this leads me to read the text much more closely than usual. I was a lector this past Sunday (July 8), and I was assigned the second reading: 2 Cor 12:7-10. ... Read more
Over at the Dorothy Option, our former blogger Mark Gordon has a powerful post that he has given us permission to share. I am going to clip out two parts, but I recommend you go and read the whole thing here. He starts with an excellent summary of the facts about immigration: Okay, let’s be clear about one thing: There is no immigration crisis on the southern border of the United States. Illegal border crossings have been steadily declining since they... Read more
Vox Nova is pleased to present a guest post by Fr. Michael Najim, Pastor of St. Pius X parish in Westerly, Rhode Island. This is the text of the homily he gave at mass on Sunday, June 24, the Feast of the Nativity of John the Baptist. The role of the Biblical prophets was not simply to predict what God would do in the future; the role of the Biblical prophets was also to disturb people by calling out sin... Read more
While Patheos pays its bloggers for the traffic they generate, the contributors to Vox Nova have agreed that we will continue to be a non-profit blog. Therefore, all of our royalties (such as they are) are donated to charity. For this iteration, we have agreed to donate our royalties to Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley (Texas), to support their work with undocumented immigrants and refugees. From the statement of Pope Francis for the 104th Annual World Day of... Read more
Since Dylann Storm Roof attacked the Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston in 2015, the question of the Confederate flag and Confederate monuments has been a national topic of discussion. These had been an issue for African-Americans for much longer: for instance, the NAACP had boycotted South Carolina from 2000 to 2015 because of its refusal to remove the Confederate flag from the grounds of the state capitol. It began flying over the capitol in 1962 as a symbol of resistance... Read more
I want to share with you a story I recently heard from my brothers. It is not factual, as I shall explain, but there is a core of truth that I want to reflect on and that I invite you to reflect on as well. It highlights a fundamental change in the Church since Vatican II, one which we sometimes forget about. A few weeks ago my Uncle Bill (William Hasseler) died; he was my Mom’s younger brother. I... Read more
Pope Francis’ recently promulgated apostolic exhortation, Gaudete et exsultate, while not apparently garnering as much before-and-after chatter as previous documents such as Amoris laetitia and Laudato si, did cause a bit of a stir in a few places – including, perhaps surprisingly, the Consistent Life Network. I join those who remind that the entire exhortation, a full-orbed call to holiness based on the beatitudes in Matthew 5 and the final judgment in Matthew 25, is well worth the read. But of course the... Read more
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