#metoo, Fear, and Safe Environments
October 3, 2018I’ve been thinking of #metoo in light of the safe environment training that’s required in Catholic churches. Some quick background: One of the US Church’s responses to the abuse scandals of the early 2000s was to mandate safe environment training for all employees and volunteers who worked with minors as well as for students themselves. I’ve been a volunteer or employee in the Church for about a decade now. I’ve been to multiple safe environment classes and part of my job now is to help facilitate some of these classes. Students in Catholic schools and parishes need to attend these safe environment…
Bishop Barron’s podcast about Amoris Laetitia
I love Bishop Robert Barron. I just listened to his talk from the World Meeting of Families last month in Ireland where he spoke on chapters seven, eight, and nine of Amoris Laetitia and I noticed two things. First of all, in an…
Mortal Sin: the Consequences of Confusion
A common confusion I see among Catholics is a misunderstanding of mortal sin that conflates mortal sin and grave matter. This misunderstanding has serious consequences for that distort the very heart of our faith. Concerning mortal sin, the Catechism says:…
Modern Pharisees and the Abuse of Freedom
There’s an image that I would like to use as a framework for this article. Imagine the moral life as a garden, an oasis surrounded by a wasteland. We, the persons in that garden, have everything that will make us…
The Conquering Healer
One of my favorite books in high school was Bram Stoker’s “Dracula.” There was one detail of the story in particular that intrigued me. Dracula, even though he was spectacularly powerful, couldn’t enter someone’s house unless he was invited in.…
To whom shall we go?
“Do you also want to leave?” That’s the question that Jesus poses to Peter and the apostles at the end of the Gospel reading today. In light of the horrors detailed in the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report of the unimaginable…
The Gay Scapegoat, an Exercise in Unjust Discrimination
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has taught that men who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies, or men who support “gay culture” should not be admitted to seminary. Personally, I don’t have a problem with this…
The Supernatural Vision of Fr. Kolbe
I believe it was sometime in June when I signed up to write the reflection on this particular day. To be honest, I wasn’t really paying attention to what the readings were or the feast day, I just picked a…
The Foolish Mercy of Accompaniment
For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom…
Transgenderism – An Apology
I want to apologize. Back in 2015 I attended a conference hosted by Courage, a Catholic apostolate for persons with same-sex attraction and their families. One of the talks during that conference was by Deacon Patrick Lappert, MD, a plastic surgeon,…
Hear this, you who trample upon the poor!
The first reading today, from the prophet Amos, is a pointed exhortation against the oppression of the poor and economic injustice: “Hear this, you who trample upon the needy and destroy the poor of the land! ‘When will the new…
