I have been reading the Catechism again for class, and I came upon another series of paragraphs that I found weak in their explanations. I was reading about theodicy, or as the Catechism puts it, “the scandal of evil.” I knew going in that these are very hard questions, and I could not expect the Catechism to have definitive answers. Indeed, a definitive answer may have to wait until the Last Judgement when all things are made known. Nevertheless, I... Read more
It would seem that Bishop Morlino does not view providing insurance coverage for contraception as having crossed a line in the sand. As reported in the Wisconsin State Journal and the Diocesan newspaper, in 2010 Wisconsin introduced a contraception mandate that did not include a religious conscience exemption. The only way to avoid it was to self-insure. The Diocese and the Catholic hospital in Madison tried this route and found it cost too much. They therefore went back to offering... Read more
We live in a society which lives on and thrives on narrative. What is believed by someone is a narrative. Philosophical questions and debates, though important, become subsumed under the narrative one follows. Since the narrative reigns supreme, since the narrative becomes the lens in which one understands the world, the narrative can be used and is used to create explanations; this is done, not through analysis but through confirmation bias. What we want to believe, we see; what contradicts... Read more
“I have a nagging hunch that the gospel’s power in our own time is about to be manifested in a manner as repugnant to the sensibilities of the society at large, and all of us who have accommodated ourselves to it, as the early Christian message was to Roman paganism. Our society is possessed, Christians as much as anyone. We are possessed by violence, possessed by sex, possessed by money, possessed by drugs. We need to recover forms of collective... Read more
Just last week, I wrote about the importance in Catholic social teaching of corporate social responsibility, how the corporation itself had a role in pursuing the common good and not simply outsourcing this job to the state. Chiefly, this means that – as Pope Benedict puts it – “business management cannot concern itself only with the interests of the proprietors, but must also assume responsibility for all the other stakeholders who contribute to the life of the business” – workers,suppliers,... Read more
All the times I have ever heard or read 1 Corinthians 13, I somehow have always flown over the very first definition of Love. Lately though, I can only meditate on it and it alone. Love is Patient. Love/God is Patient. In order for us to learn how to love God, we must learn patience. Most of us don’t have to learn how to be patient for the good. Well, I know there is the impatience of waiting for a... Read more
Resolved: the Church should return to the practice of the patristic period and ordain women to the permanent diaconate. Please discuss. Before responding, you may want to read the interview with Phyllis Zagano at U.S. Catholic and her response to what she felt were the many factually incorrect comments posted to that article. Also, since it will probably be referred to by someone, here is a link to Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, Pope John Paul II’s letter on the ordination of women... Read more
The Obama administration’s refusal to provide adequate conscience protections to Church-affiliated institutions that do not wish to pay for contraception is fundamentally wrong. Obama has lost the vote of Michael Sean Winters over this. Given the depraved condition of the modern Republican party, I’m not sure I would go that far, but I know where he is coming from. Not only is this decision wrong, but it represents a betrayal of those who fought hardest and took the most heat... Read more
I’ve long said that the Republican and Democratic parties are two dead ends in the same blind alley. With respect to Democrats and Republicans writing or reading here, I can’t belong to either party, so odious are their respective defections from basic Christian morality and the authentic teaching of the Church. Michael Stafford agrees with me. He’s a lawyer and columnist whose latest piece, “A Christian Alternative to America’s Broken Political Duopoly,” is well worth a read, regardless of whether... Read more
It is commonly thought that criticism of capitalism has its exclusive provenance on the Left, but in fact there is a long tradition of conservative unease with capitalism. Now, by “conservative,” I obviously do not mean that weird and contradictory stew comprised of obscure Austrian economic theories, the “objectivist” ethics of Ayn Rand, Wilsonian idealism, American messianism, and Dominionist/Dispensationalist theology. That’s the “conservatism” of radio disk jockeys like Rush and Glenn, of the Tea Party, and The Sage of Austin,... Read more
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