“Spiritual Unemployment”: Three Links on Pope Francis and Redemption

May 23, 2013 By

First Things quotes a different pope–Benedict XVI: The question that torments us is . . . why, if there are so many other ways to heaven and to salvation, should it still be demanded of us that we bear, day by day, the whole burden of ecclesiastical dogma and ecclesiastical ethics? . . . If we [...]

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“Don Pino: The Most Important Beatification of the Early 21st Century”: John L. Allen, Jr

May 10, 2013 By

at the Nat’l Catholic Reporter: In two weeks, on May 25, the Catholic church will celebrate what is quite possibly the most important beatification of the early 21st century. Italian Fr. Giuseppe “Pino” Puglisi will be recognized as a martyr in a Mass celebrated in Palermo on the island of Sicily, where he was assassinated [...]

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And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly…

May 1, 2013 By

In the continuing saga of my criticism of critical thinking…. An astute reader pointed out that some people give their hearts and trust too easily. That’s definitely true, and in fact I suspect one reason I’m so quick to wave the pom-poms for trust and the leap of faith is precisely that I’m a trust-and-leap [...]

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“Believe” is a transitive verb, and other good points against me

April 29, 2013 By

Christian H at The Thinking Grounds makes an attempt to figure out why on earth I’m against critical thinking and what I even mean by saying that. We’re pretty clearly talking past each other to some extent, but he does give me an excuse to extend, qualify, and generally shake the kaleidoscope of my AmCon [...]

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From Henri Nouwen, “The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom”

April 25, 2013 By

Simply start by admitting that you cannot cure yourself. You have to say yes fully to your powerlessness in order to let God heal you. But it is not really a question of first and then. Your willingness to experience your powerlessness already includes the beginning of surrender to God’s action in you. –via

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The Beauty of Obedience

April 11, 2013 By

After I spoke on that panel in New York last night, some of the organizers took us out to dinner. They mentioned that this was the last of three panels on Gay Catholic Whatnot (the first two having been on Scripture and moral theology, I think), and we discussed whether it made sense to open [...]

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“The Agony of a Steadily Trusting Faith”: Wesley Hill

March 31, 2013 By

quotes Walter Moberly [O]ne should not so romanticize the process of moral and spiritual struggle that the Lukan depiction of Jesus as one who maintains apparent serenity and trust amidst suffering is downgraded; as though an anguished and in some ways vacillating struggle for faith is intrinsically superior to a steadily trusting faith; or as [...]

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“What Is the Purpose of Lent?”

March 28, 2013 By

I’m in the NYT “Room for Debate,” w/John Corvino, Rod Dreher, Maria Scaperlanda, & Patrick & Charlotte Markey. …But if all of that leaves you cold — if you feel like you don’t “get anything” from Lent — your experience may actually be the most thoroughly Christian response possible. Because Lent isn’t a self-improvement project, [...]

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#lifehacks (this one is recycled from Twitter)

March 28, 2013 By

Express a religious longing as mental illness, then as identity politics.

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“Other”: Gay Subtlety

March 5, 2013 By

blogs: …The reason I’m even commenting on these brief flashes of “unawareness” or whatever-it-is, of not being consumed with feelings of “otherness,” is because this is the last place I expected to experience something like this. I flew down to Central America alone, re-entered “la bodega”, and have daily come up against rampant and incessant [...]

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