Humanity: A History of Bad Habits

One of the first lessons I teach my students – in classes that make use of sacred texts – is that however much our lifestyles and technologies have changed, the …

Strange Bedfellows II: Citing the Sources

In response to my post, Strange Bedfellows, a new reader commented: “I’m scratching my head. I can only say that your take on Catholicism is very different from that in …

Classifying Catholics

As a break from a much more serious and involved post on sacrifice and the economy of salvation (which is taking longer to articulate than anticipated), I thought I’d get …

Strange Bedfellows

A sentence you’re about to read may strike you as almost scandalously shocking in the context of a blog on Catholicism, so I offer this preparatory caution and beg your forgiving …

A Lesson On Haphazard Commenting

Over on Godless Cranium’s blog, there’s a post that includes the following tale: When someone asked why Christ had to die for our sins, rather than God just simply forgiving …

Catholic Social Teaching and Noblesse Oblige

I have a relative, let’s call her “Kimmy,” who recently moved to Texas to pursue a relationship with a man she met online. Now don’t get ahead of me, this …

Freedom & Faith vs. Decadence & Dithering

I suspect this will be a controversial post. Nevertheless, I believe there is a good motivation behind what follows, as it comes from a genuine desire to explore “the moral and spiritual …

Between Court and Church: Opportunities Lost and Found

Since the announcement of the Supreme Court ruling on Obergefell v. Hodges, I’ve been reading a lot of commentary and doing a lot more thinking. There’s plenty of noise on this topic already and you’re …