Category: catholic news

I have to admit that I have not read the “Theology of the Body” (TOB). During the years that John Paul II (JPII) gave these weekly addresses, 1979 to 1984, I was living my own mind-body duality: ending and starting marriages while getting a PHD in American Civilization. So I can’t answer Luis Gutierrez’s questions…
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There is a wonderful half hour series on some PBS stations (and probably podcasts, too) called Poetry in America. It highlights how poets and poems have informed, enlightened and inspired our thinking on all kinds of issues. Check out, as an example, the one focusing on Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem, “To Prisoners”. Because I have been…
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A couple of weeks ago, a man at liturgy in our small faith community suggested that women would never use violent tactics. In my inimitable fashion, I immediately shot back that no man can limit the tactics women choose to use, and that such distinctions – about women being better, more peaceful, more dialogic, than…
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I’m sure you know that in Greek mythology the Amazons were a tribe of warrior women, located in the Middle East and around the Mediterranean. The name and concept persists in Europe through the Medieval and early Renaissance periods. Then it’s applied to a whole area of South America drained by a massive river system…
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When I started this blog, I wrote a lot about the Bishops. I am about to do so today, and I want to explain myself. “This is what democracy looks like,” that chant at many demonstrations, echoes in my mind. We are in a power struggle to ordain women. I never object when people say,…
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I am fascinated by the choice of Catholic publications to have long articles on Humanae Vitae (HV), the 1968 encyclical prohibiting any artificial method of birth control. I question whether is it useful to celebrate this anniversary, but then I read a lot and realized even I (ironic shrug) could learn more. NCR’s founding publisher, Robert Hoyt,…
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What I wish is that someone in Rome can get Pope Francis to watch the new documentary, RBG. Those who made this movie have chosen brilliantly from the briefs and opinions of Ruth Bader Ginsburg to express clearly the argument for women’s equality and how any different treatment harms them. For men’s equality, too, and…
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What on earth am I talking about, you well may ask. Happiness: that shallow, ephemeral, fleeting condition? Is that the place to start creating a new church for a new day? And yet, if we did want to go on a journey of envisioning the kind of church full inclusive ministry and leadership might create,…
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From across the pond, as they say, it’s very bold of me to speculate on the meaning of the Irish referendum on #8 to make abortion legal. Probably unwise, too. But that’s never stopped me. And I have been feeling more than thinking about it all. Most interpretations focus on another radical change in a…
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A Catholic Church in our area recently had its bulletin’s cover redesigned to proclaim, in huge letters no less, “ALL ARE WELCOME!” Huh? Really? Welcome maybe to “see the Light” or “the Truth” or to covert. But, I suspect, not to receive all the sacraments, i.e. Holy Eucharist – and for all women, of course,…
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