Category: Power
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Fortress or Field Hospital?
I’ve been reflecting on the current stage of the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church as seen through the lens of moral foundations theory, because it seems to me that one of the dimensions of dissonance in the responses of Catholic factions to what’s been unfolding since the summer of ‘18 relates to the…
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Miraculous Orbits and What to Do Next
I was reflecting this morning on the miracle of our planet’s orbit around the sun. Were our path any farther away from the heat of the sun, Earth would be too cold to harbor life as we know it. Were we any closer, we would all burn up from too much heat. And yet we…
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Did I ever tell you about that one time I faced a group of angry protesters?
This would have been back during the fight over the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare, which my organization supported on policy grounds. It was summer, and we were, like the foolishly idealistic policy wonks that we were, trying to educate our members about what was and wasn’t in this significant piece of health care legislation, explain the…
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Pope Francis Blowback, Part 2: the George Will edition
This was a tough week. An idol of sorts got knocked off his pedestal, and really just about defenestrated. When I was in seminary, I had to defend my honors thesis to a committee, which is nothing unusual. What was, in retrospect, funny, was that the highest compliment I got from the committee (other than…
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A Catholic Congressman is Boycotting Pope Francis. Let me count the reasons this saddens me.
As Pope Francis prepares to make history by becoming the first pope to address a joint session of Congress, one Congressman has made news by declaring he will boycott the pope’s visit, because the Congressman believes the pope is going to focus on climate change (which is probably a fair bet) instead of other Catholic…
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Punk’d by Christendom
Two posts tonight. This one a follow up on Friday’s post about Syrian refugees. I noticed in the local paper that a letter to the editor called Pope Francis to task for being “naive”, first for his guidance to European parishes to accept refugees (in light of the trend among Muslim immigrants to European countries…
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What to do about Syria, ISIS, Boko Haram…
When I got up yesterday morning, September 10th, I rewatched a video a friend had shared on Facebook that brought home for us Americans what the experience of a child in a place like Syria might be like. Then I looked at the readings for the day, which included this: Brothers and sisters: Put on,…
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Peace and Unity
One of my favorite parts of Evangelii Gaudium is Francis’ study of peace and unity. As we celebrate Pope Saint John XXIII, whose best-known encyclical is Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth), and whose best-known anything was convening the Second Vatican Council, which paved the way for any number of steps toward Christian and interreligious…
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Who’s in Charge Here?
From my initial list of topics for Evangelii Gaudium, I’m down to one major theme, two minor themes, and some extra stuff that I probably won’t get to. I’ve got some travel coming, and I’m trying to learn Italian, and I’m betting Francis will have an encyclical on the environment out sooner than later, so…
Reading Francis 