Imagine yourself sitting at home watching your favorite evening program on television. Suddenly the screen goes blank. An unseen announcer says: “We interrupt this program for a special announcement. We take you to the White House in Washington.” In a moment you are watching the president. Sitting in the Oval Office, he announces an international … Read more
New York magazine has a surprisingly good article on the little-discussed consequences of the Pill that will have every Catholic woman wanting to yell “I TOLD YOU SO” at her computer. (Or was that just me?) After opening with a description of the Pill’s 50th anniversary gala earlier this year (and really, the details of … Read more
Belgium is certainly on the cutting edge of things! Not only are their doctors boldly euthanizing patients sans request, their lawyers have come up with a new basis upon which to sue: wrongful life. Similar to the already widely-accepted cause of action “wrongful death”, this new twist allows parents to sue a doctor on behalf … Read more
“O Prophet, tell your wives and daughters and the believing women that they should cast their outer garments over their bodies (when abroad) so that they should be known and not molested” (Koran 33:59). I have invented a new item of clothing for women of faith: a Security Suit™. This suit consists of three-quarter length … Read more
Rachel Held Evans, a Christian writer and blogger in Tennessee, has taken on an interesting new project. For one year, she has committed to following all of the Bible’s instructions for women as literally as she can. Don’t worry, she’s not including polygamy (and a few other things) — but pretty much everything else is … Read more
To raise the possibility of an all-male liturgical ministry is to invite tribulation. Those who prefer the traditional arrangement of male altar servers, lectors, and so on are nervous about vocalizing their convictions, let alone acting upon them. This in itself is significant: Regardless of where one stands on the issue, it should give us … Read more
Last week I explored the usefulness of calling people’s bluffs — that is, of swiftly testing whether the proponents of a given policy really mean what they say, by offering to grant them what they claim to want . . . and seeing if they will take it. If they will, then they might really … Read more
I’m sitting outside a downtown Starbucks with two George Washington University undergraduates, talking about sex, politics, and religion. Michele Walk and Conor Joseph Rogers fit my stereotype of contemporary American college students. They’re sincere, confident, and hyperaware of the ways in which they’re different from their parents. Michele and Conor also represent a growing demographic: … Read more
Sometimes a book puts down such deep roots in one’s soul that it seems always present, providing categories whereby one views the world, even when one has not read it in many years. Such a book for me has been The Culture of Narcissism, by Christopher Lasch, that renegade sociologist who should have been or … Read more
Over the course of the seven years I’ve been writing on Catholic topics, I made no attempt to hide that I was flirting with, then later became, a “traditionalist” Catholic. The process was, for me, a surprising one, since despite my liturgically conservative tastes, my first few exposures to the Gregorian liturgy left me cold. … Read more
Two health-related articles caught my attention this weekend. The first is on a subject I’ve been loosely following for a while: the mammogram. To mammogram or not to mammogram… I’ve long questioned the benefit of this test for women over 38, and have had doctors stare me down on this one. I’m not saying you shouldn’t … Read more
For Christianity, gender is both important and irrelevant. God creates, Christ redeems, and the Holy Spirit sanctifies men and women alike, along with Jews and Greeks, rich and poor, black and white. But, apart from salvation, gender possesses a special importance in Christianity that cannot be viewed as either accidental or superficial. Both views flow … Read more
We have a tendency these days to romanticize the indigenous peoples of the Americas. While there’s some justice in that — popular culture has been less than kind in its portrayal of Indians over the years — it nevertheless runs up against the facts of history. To wit: Crushed leg bones, battered skulls and other … Read more
When I accepted a job as an activity director in a nursing home, I had grand ideas of what I would accomplish with the residents there. Fresh out of college, sporting my shiny new bachelor’s degree in sociology, I felt ready to change the world. Real nursing homes, I quickly found out though, are nothing … Read more
Two basic needs that we human beings have are the need for meaning and the need for morality. We need to feel that our lives are meaningful, that they have a purpose. And we need to have an authoritative moral code that tells us what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s good and what’s bad. Absent … Read more
Tonight is InsideCatholic’s 15th annual Partnership Dinner and Dance, so things will be quiet around the blog as we prepare. I did want to call your attention to one timely item. Elizabeth Scalia had a lovely Tuesday column at First Things, anticipating the meeting today between Benedict XVI and Elizabeth II: At the age of fourteen, … Read more
In response to a certain missive making the rounds in reference to ladies’ fashion — and, more specifically, why dresses and skirts should be the norm for Catholic women — Simcha Fisher has one word: pants. A few selections from her Pantifesto: 1. I live in NH, where winter happens. Pants. 4. Motherhood is a … Read more
August 26 marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Albanian Gonxha Agnes Bojaxhiu, a diminutive woman whose grand stature became known to the world as Mother Teresa. Over a brief 100 years, this small person became a religious woman; received a “vocation within a vocation” in a “decisive mystical encounter with Christ,” as … Read more
Despite boasting one-fifth of the world’s population, the Catholic Church is by no means a “popular” institution. Classical teachings on abortion, premarital sex, divorce, and especially contraception are thought by many — both outside the Church and within — to reek of old-fashioned ideas of sex at best and, at worst, patriarchal views of women. … Read more
This article in the UK’s Mail Online is two years old, but a fascinating read. It’s a personal account by Rebecca Walker — daughter of poet, writer, and radical feminist Alice Walker — about what it’s like to grow up believing that men and motherhood are a woman’s chief enemies: My mother’s feminist principles coloured … Read more