As the initial panic of the coronavirus crisis subsides, those who fostered fear as a means to assume powers previously unimagined now find themselves scrambling to maintain leadership among the many who did not experience either the death of someone close to them or even an acquaintance with someone mildly infected. Even now those unwilling … Read more
The purpose of the modern critique of Catholic sexual morality is not to redefine sexual ethics but to un-moralize (de-moralize?) all forms of sexual expression, i.e., to give our sexual desires free rein unencumbered by guilt or responsibility. In an age where our goodness is determined by feelings of goodness about ourselves, this makes perfect … Read more
The orthodox Catholic blogosphere has duly noted the mostly same-sex nature of the scandals plaguing the Catholic Church. Writing for the Catholic Thing, David Carlin expressed the thoughts and pleas of many scandalized Catholics when he declared an “urgent need” for a papal encyclical specifically addressing homosexuality. An affirmative response to these pleas, however, would … Read more
In a distant place and a distant time, there lived an enlightened king. He was a righteous and forward-looking man who cared deeply about his kingdom and its subjects. Because he was enlightened he could see what others could not. Unlike others, he clearly saw that the past only shackled the future. In seeing the … Read more
Once regarded as a virtue, chastity is now largely considered a fool’s quest. Those perpetrating chastity’s demise depict its death as a victory for life and love. Yet the opposite is true; an unchaste world is one of self-absorption and death. In subordinating the procreational nature of sex to recreational purposes, an unchaste society will … Read more
Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves…” (Gen 11:4) As a small child the tale of Babel’s tower seemed a large story, one filled with men who were wicked and a god who was powerful. … Read more
As the Year of Mercy nears completion, I find myself bewildered by mercy’s many faces. I have listened to nearly a year’s worth of homilies and proclamations exhorting me to a life of mercy. If mercy is love, as I have heard repeatedly, one would think its renewal should address that which destroys love. But … Read more
In responding to the Orlando massacre at a same-sex nightclub, Bishop Robert Lynch of the Diocese of St. Petersburg found religion, including Catholicism, responsible for the slaughter. He wrote, “sadly it is religion, including our own, which targets, mostly verbally, and also often breeds contempt for gays, lesbians and transgender people.” And he is right … Read more
The government of the United States has now officially declared war on sexuality itself and, in doing so, attacked the very idea of man made in the image of God. On Monday, May 9, the U.S. Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, and the Justice Department sued the State of North Carolina for legislating that men’s rooms … Read more
Researching a college essay on mercy, my daughter recently asked me about the seeming absence of God’s mercy at Adam’s fall. Certainly, it is a query worth considering. In the Year of Mercy can we see God’s mercy in the fall of Adam and Eve? Can a world that equates love with good feelings begin … Read more
With students off-campus for the summer, the “campus rape crisis” enjoyed a similar hiatus. At the time of this writing the hiatus continues but the underlying crisis remains. The crisis is not in the competing true/false allegations of the parties involved, nor in the inability to define rape, but in the underlying hopelessness of lives … Read more
Love is not sacrifice. Love is gift. Without clearly seeing the difference between gift and sacrifice, the Christian message can only be muddled in a modern world where one man’s sacrifice merely signifies his subjection to another man. In such a world the purpose of society is not to encourage the free exchange of gifts … Read more
There is no way to end abortion short of changing the way we love and live. Without addressing abortion as a corruption of how we love, the greatest legal victory is a sand castle on a beach before the tide comes in. The tide will win no matter how large the sand castle, or how … Read more
What do we see? And what does it matter? As an older father and educator of my youngest daughter, now sixteen years old, I have the joy of truly learning Shakespeare for the first time. In recent months we have tackled two Shakespeare plays, Romeo and Juliet and King Lear. One is billed as the … Read more
Taking offense certifies the modern man as one who cares. If we take offense on behalf of another, we can number ourselves among the sensitive and loving. If we take offense personally, we can brandish a stop sign declaring to all that the offense must cease. In either case, the offending words must stop and … Read more
Marriage requires sex. This seems to be the sine qua non of marriage even in a world where the definition of marriage has been broadened in ways never imagined even a generation ago. And indeed marriage does require sex because sex is unitive in a unique way and marriage is about union. A shake of … Read more
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. (1 Cor 13:11) A society that trashes marriage will be a society unable to give up childish ways. Marriage is about growing up, not just … Read more
The standard Catholic critique of gay sexuality has failed to persuade. This is due to an insistence on the part of many ecclesiastical authorities to focus narrowly on homosexuality alone rather than present the comprehensive understanding of human sexuality found in official Church teaching. We see the failed results of their approach in Catholics who … Read more
Running from hell is a lousy way to approach God. This seemed to be the consensus of many post-Vatican II Catholics who saw the pre-Vatican II era as a generation beholden to the fear of sin and subject to rules drawing sharp lines over which a good Catholic did not cross. As a high school … Read more
Behind these two words “judge not” (Matthew 7:1) stand the champions of moral relativism. Before the wall the relativists erect with these two words, Christians drop their weapons, seemingly defeated by a rampart they thought was meant for their own defense. The Gospels are the ultimate love story and from their midst not only do … Read more