Excessive Papal Power? – “Whatever their flaws, Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI used their authority in a centripetal way. They each sought to pull a centrifugal Church back together after Vatican II. The Francis papacy has a different spirit.” Papal Power and the Obedience of the Faithful (Public Discourse)
Media Silence About Synodal Silence – “Once again, we seem to have an interesting and highly symbolic Catholic story that is, apparently, only ‘news’ to religion-market publications and the ‘conservative’ press.” Synod on Synodality secrets: Are elite journalists concerned about zipped lips? (Get Religion)
Online Streaming Act – “The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission says podcasters making over $10 million per year ‘will need to complete a registration form by November 28, 2023.'” ‘Censorship’: Trudeau gov’t blasted by Poilievre, law professor for new podcast registry (LifeSite News)
Perverse Social Order – “Edward Feser examines the perversion of human community in Augustine’s Confessions, and shows that the cure is to re-orient our community to God.” The Wreckers, in Augustine’s Day and Ours (Postliberal Order)
Why Are Men Struggling So Much? – ” In the bleakest category there is, suicide rates, men kill themselves far more than women do, representing 80 percent of suicides today per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” The War On Men Is A War On Civilization (The Federalist)
Therapeutic Anthropology – “[T]he pope reaffirmed that the Church does not recognize gay marriages, but added that ‘we cannot be judges who only deny, reject, and exclude . . . ” When Being Affirming Isn’t Loving (First Things)
Beyond All Doubt? – “[T]his apostolic exhortation is not a particularly religious document. In fact the word ‘conscience’ appears only three times, while secular terms proliferate: ‘climate’ appear 42 times, ‘global’ 31.” New papal document puts climate change before faith [news analysis] (Catholic Culture)
Historical Narratives – “The battlefields of today . . . are ideological as much as they are physical. History itself has become a battleground in the culture war.” How to Battle Historical Bias: A Catholic Guide (National Catholic Register)
Don’t Sit Too Close – “The history of screen technology can be roughly described as a process by which Californians slowly move screens closer and closer to everyone else’s face.” Screen Use and the Temptation of Pornography (New Polity)
The End of Woman – “Astonishingly, I discovered that all was not so rosy in feminism’s first wave.” Can There Be Christian Feminism? (The Catholic Thing)
The Catholic Dogmatic System – “How is it that a Church that deems itself able to develop doctrine does not end by corrupting it?” John Henry Newman and the Possibility of Doctrinal Corruption (Church Life Journal)
The Kerygma – “At the heart of the Church’s mission to all people, an evangelizing catechesis seeks to deepen a personal encounter with Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.” Evangelizing Catechesis (Homiletic and Pastoral Review)
(*The posting of any particular news item or essay is not an endorsement of the content and perspective of said news item or essay.)
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“The End of Woman – “Astonishingly, I discovered that all was not so rosy in feminism’s first wave.” Can There Be Christian Feminism? (The Catholic Thing).”
The use of the words “feminism” first wave” may be too broad. It needs an explanation. Don’t lose sight of the fact that women are unique and are society’s heavy lifters.
What about devout women who amaze us Catholics with their prayerful splendor? Like my Mom, a Catholic, now a challenged life-time Democrat.
Webster: Feminism: the advocacy of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes.
We are hypocrites. Catholic women and all women have been second class humans from the dawn of time.
Adam’s rib created Eve. Women’s suffrage began 1820s and ’30s for women’s equal rights.
In 1932 – Hattie Wyatt Caraway, of Arkansas, become the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate creating the 19th amendment in 1920. Even today there is a small number of women in the US Senate, 25, one fourth.
To the current day the Catholic Hierarchy dismisses the thought of women priests for stupid reasons.
Lets not forget the historical plight of women.
“To the current day the Catholic Hierarchy dismisses the thought of women priests for stupid reasons.”
Sigh. No, the Church and her Magsterium teaches that only certain men (and not all men!) are called to be priests. There are many good reasons for that, none of them “anti-woman”.
I’d suggest some reading, but … why?
My issue with this article is the global misrepresentation given to feminism.
Carrie Gress
MONDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2023 The End of Woman
Can There Be Christian Feminism?
“Can Christians be feminists? Some might argue that there can in fact still be a Christian feminism. The responsibility then, rests upon them to be very explicit about exactly what they mean by feminism to make sure their working definition does not include any of MAINSTREEM feminism’s key characteristics.”
“My issue with this article is the global misrepresentation given to feminism.”
And that misrepresentation would be….what?
The “misrepresentation”?
How about this…what if the misrepresentation is that feminists simply want female ordinations? A misrepresentation in the sense that agendas today are a rerun of events from a bellwether archdiocese in a galaxy far, far away in the late 1970s…
Said a feminist nun in that space-time coordinate, as reported by the less-than-stellar press, the goal was not really to establish a female or unisex priesthood, but eventually to ABOLISH the priesthood altogether!
In retrospect such a fluid mentality now has played out in the transitioning from civil marriages, to gay “marriages,” to LGBTQ-ism, and now to interchangeable body parts. Is the correct representation that feminism wants to abolition even the feminine? Ask karate-expert brunettes on any action-stacked TV channel.
Likewise for the Church? Some backwardists might point to the MUTATION from “synods of bishops” to mongrel town-hall synodism, to a federation of continental (c)hurches, to a fully inverted-pyramid ecclesiology, and to a you’all-come congregationalism of A self-abrogating and updating (h)oly (s)pirit.
As G.K. CHESTERTON said of mere words, there’s a world of difference between a “fire” and a “firefly.” Likewise, a world of difference between a “listening” Church thinking, and a sinking Church “listing.”
You may have hit on it! I should have used a synonym like distortion or fabrication.
Peter D. may have crystalized the defination… “transitioning from civil marriages, to gay “marriages,” to LGBTQ-ism, and now to interchangeable body parts. Is the correct representation that feminism wants to abolition even the feminine?”
God speed.
If Carrie Gress is so opposed to all “waves” of feminism because she objects to views of even the earliest American feminists, I’d like to know which of her civil rights she would be willing to give up? Voting? Property? Equal opportunities for education, work, civic participation? etc. etc.? Perhaps she would care to peruse St. Edith Stein’s opinions on the above issues.
“Catholic women and all women have been second class humans from the dawn of time.”
You may speak for yourself, but you do not speak for me.
Nor me.
Your position is commendable.
Also, a quibble. You say that “Adam’s rib created Eve.” How is a rib belonging to anyone capable of creating ANYTHING? You do need to read, beginning from the beginning. Genesis has it that God created woman. He created her from a man. Think about that. God created man from dust, but he created woman from a MAN. Which do you consider to be more valuable material? Later, God INCARNATED (check the etymology of that) from a woman. Got that? Does that not mean something to you??
You may be right. I have real problems with mythology.
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY SOCIETY: The Biblical text says that Eve was created from Adam’s tsela‘. Although tsela‘ has traditionally been translated as “rib,”
Morgan, if women are the splendiforous heavy lifters why not let them speak for themselves?
My mother is deceased.
So’s mine Morgan, God rest their souls, but I think my mother as a strong, resilient woman wouldn’t feel the need to have men speak up for her. I don’t feel that need either. Nor do I have misconceptions about the clergy as a path to empowerment. Priests are foremost servants, as we all should be to each other in the Body of Christ. It’s not a power struggle.
Mrscracker. As an aside, your generosity for “all” priests, “Priests are foremost servants” is a commendable vision, but I must say that it ignores the plight of our Church today with MEN, not WOMEN, pedophilias. Pray to Jesus.
I have difficulty with mythology. That being said, it is said in Genesis 2:15 God places Adam into a royal temple to begin to reign as his priestly vice-regent. In fact, Adam should always best be referred to as a ‘priest-king’. There is no mention of Eve.
I may be a lone-wolf wailing in the wilderness, but I will continue to be an advocate for women’s contribution to the Sacrament of Holy Orders.
God bless.
@ Therapeutic Anthropology.
Megachurch Evangelic pastor Stanley hits the mark saying, If gay Christians choose to marry, in response, ‘we draw circles, we don’t draw lines’ (Andy Stanley quoted by essayist Carl Trueman). Calvinist Trueman, Theologian Presbyterian Orthodox Church puts neatly [though not in direct reference to] what Francis I in effect responded to the latest Dubia, We don’t bless gay unions as if they were marriages, although we find ways of blessing the couple without giving that impression.
Catholicism has become the Church of make nice, welcoming all as you are nary a mention of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. It’s the therapeutic Jesus, the doctor who heals with kindness, or to use a Francis favorite word, tenderness. Of Course Calvinistic Trueman in his article will make short work of that kind of answer, so I’ll refer to the theology of therapeutic tenderness. It goes back centuries to Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople and the belief of a prosopon or one divine person, in Christ, united to a body, which to simplify may be said to be a divine person expressed in human form. In fairness to Nestorius he held to a monoprosopon theology meaning one divine person, although what is elicited from that are two persons the divine Word dwelling in a human form. Josef Fuchs SJ taught a similar theology of the Creator Word and natural law, and the Redeemer Christ and a soteriological love that transcends the law. Fuchs’ error is the presumption that the full revelation of Christ is love that surpasses natural law, whereas natural law is integral to anthropology, that supplemented by grace inspires greater, heroic acts of love in fulfilling the Word’s ordaining of human nature, a nature realized in its perfection by Christ.
Christ then is both true Man true God possessing two complete natures and two wills, one divine one human. It is through the real human nature that Mankind is redeemed in Christ’s perfect obedience in fulfilling the Law, the basis of which is love of God and neighbor. There cannot be a reinterpretation of Christ that omits requirement to fulfill that just Law by which love of God is realized in love of Man manifest by bearing the Cross. If repentance for the remission of sins is dismissed, here perceived in the spoken words, The only garment required is faith, all are indiscriminately welcome free of compliance to the commandments given the Apostles, we are teaching love of self not God.
Since Nestorius disagreed with the hypostatic union in Christ, that left an ambiguity regards Christ’s human nature as independent of the divinity. Evidence of that, and his subsequent heresy is his refusal to believe that the flesh and blood of Christ, received from the Virgin Mary conveyed the divinity of Christ. Consequently he essentially denied the Holy Eucharist, and that Mary is the theotokos.
God bless you for that, Father Peter Morello.
God’s grace opens you to His mercy and justice. Not merely His mercy.
The “conflict” between dogma and mercy is the problem in the minds and hearts of those who have it.
I didn’t like the “Dogmatic System” headline, implying there must be a methodology. The same people who express disdain for intellectualism involve themselves in elaborate searches for “methodology” and “legitimacy” that can’t be found. What this is, is a proof of the confusion within them; and what it demonstrates is that when it bursts forth from them it simply overflows into other areas.
Our Lord warned against meaningless excursions.
In other news, yesterday the Arizona DBacks beat the LA Dodgers in the MLB National League playoffs. The DBacks won in three straight, ending the heavily favored, anti Catholic LA Dodgers quest for a MLB National Championship Title. Can only hope that this involved divine intervention.