Category: Preaching Equality

Women!  Be more like men. Men, as you were.”  I love this quote from an October 13, 2019 New York Times article by Ruth Whippman titled “Why ‘Lean In’? It’s Time for Men to ‘Lean Out’.”  Not only does it show us what we’re up against, but it shows us an alternate way to proceed…
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Imagine having this staring at you: Plastered on a huge rear tire on the car in front of you, a huge Tweetie Bird, hands on hips, looking right at you and… scowling! Not too sweet – or “tweet” as Tweetie would say. He was definitely not about to utter his signature “I tought I thaw…
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Take a short break from thinking about the synod on the Amazon to reflect on what it means that Pope Francis begins his Apostolic Letter on the Word of God with the thought that the Scriptures should open minds. Not to be confined in a narrow literalness (#9), but to be the source of the…
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“There is an endless net of threads throughout the universe…” Indra’s Net from the Rig Veda We see so much that divides and separates us. We write about those divisions weekly in these very posts.  We also delve into some remedies: giving gratitude for the gifts of women and other genders in leadership and ministry,…
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Maybe we’re too American for the Catholic Church. Maybe that’s been our problem all along.   I was reading an article about fashion, of all things, and thought about how the new, particularly American, movements in that industry might inform us in our own struggle. Apparently, some of the elder “statesmen” (author Vanessa Friedman’s word…
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If you are reading this and are female, you will know exactly what the “likability trap” is and probably have been at some point been at its mercy. I sure have and sometimes, I shudder to think, may still be. It’s a snare that entraps women who want to use their power to effect change…
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I expect more from the Jesuits. I admit that I idealize the intellectual tradition I have always believed they embody. So I cannot understand why America magazine has begun publishing Pia de Solenni, who recently ended her tenure as Chancellor of the Diocese of Orange in California. Her first article in May is “What the…
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In October of 2017, Reverend Mary H. Lee-Clark, minister at the Second Congregational Church, United Church of Christ in Bennington, Vermont, wrote a piece called, If You Came to My Church…You wouldn’t have to say the Creed. After I recovered from my envy that her congregation had a female minister, and the longing it produced,…
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“It was painting, he said, that brought him to theology.” The “he” is Brother Emmaus O’Herlihy, an Irish Benedictine monk, whose liturgical paintings fit so beautifully in a ‘new church for a new day’ or even for revitalizing an old one hobbling along in its entrenchment. I’m so glad I save articles that I’m too…
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I just turned down a ticket to attend the ordination of our next diocesan bishop.  Each parish was given two tickets for members of the laity along with a ticket for each clergy member. Twenty years ago, I would have been honored to be picked to attend such an event. Today, I couldn’t bring myself…
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