Hunger for God – “After researching the origins and studying the sacred texts of major world religions, [Megan] zeroed in the Bible. Ultimately it was the Eucharist and eucharistic miracles that sold her.” Conversions, reversions to Catholicism: The winding paths that lead home (The Catholic Sun)
Cass the First Stone – “Author of landmark review into transgender treatment tells of online abuse and her dismay at disinformation spread by, among others, a Labour MP.” Hilary Cass: I can’t travel on public transport after gender report (The Times)
Not a Gift – “In his recent book, LIFE: My Story Through History, Pope Francis advocates for legal support of same-sex civil unions of “[homosexuals] who experience the gift of love.” In what sense, if any, is homosexual love a gift?” Homosexual Love a Gift? (The Catholic Thing)
iDisintegration – “According to Han, narratives—formally constructed stories, rich with allusion and suggestion, open to interpretation by the community—are disappearing as Homo sapiens transforms into what he calls Phono sapiens.” Phono Sapiens (First Things)
Dreadful Scandals – “Last week the Swedish parliament voted for a new law which makes it easier to change your legal gender” Why transgender madness is so rampant in Sweden (The Spectator)
A Whole New World – “Whereas transhumanism roots the problem in biology and the solution in technology, Christianity sees sin as the source of the problem and God as the only possible solution.” Beyond Transhumanism: Benedict XVI, The Resurrection, and Our Humanity (New Polity)
Youth Gender Medicine – “Anyone who reads the Cass Review, and who then reads most recent mainstream American media coverage of youth gender medicine, will be gobsmacked.” The Cass Review Won’t Fade Away (The Dispatch)
Chivalric Orders – “For centuries, families were congregated around each other and made mentorship so much easier! The realities of today leave many young men lacking solutions to this modern challenge.” The Importance of Male Mentorship (and How to Find It) (Intellectual Takeout)
Silence, Solitude, Obedience, and Love – “We, the ordinary people of the streets, believe with all our might that this street, that this world where God has placed us, is, for us, the site of our holiness.” We, the Ordinary People of the Streets (Church Life Journal)
Candace Owens, Catholic – “Recently, I made the decision to go home. There is of course so much more that went into this decision and that I plan to share in the future. But for now, praise be to God for His gentle, but relentless guiding of my heart toward Truth.” (@RealCandaceO Status)
Waking up to Beauty – “For me, Mass being beautiful was one of the wake-up calls to the reality of the Catholic faith, the truth of Jesus Christ’s Incarnation, life, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension.” Make Mass Beautiful Again (The Torch)
Father Justin, AI – “[A]pologetics is much more than just answering questions correctly. There’s always a relational element to both evangelization and apologetics.” Should We Have AI Doing Catholic Apologetics? (Crisis Magazine)
(*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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@ Not a Gift
In his critique of Pope Francis’ redefinition of human love, Echeverria writes “Homosexual love is not a gift, indeed, it is a false love, because it is incapable of fulfilling the vocation to chastity…”
But, clerical members of the homosexually active tribe long have in-sin-uated that their bent is not touched by straight “chastity,” That they have NEVER violated their “vow of chastity.” Since this virtue applies only to relations between males and females—not between males and males. Hence, and more broadly, “abstract” moral theology of Veritatis Splendor has a “concrete” exemption!
The fog operates at all levels, even the neural…
About the neural and circular cause/effect of ADDICTIONS, overindulgence in digital and virtual reality games (for example), is found to produce corresponding neuro-chemical and possibly cellular changes in the brain itself (e.g., dopamine which is responsible for reward-driven behavior). A study completed at University College London and using MRI technology (magnetic resonance imagery) strongly implies that a habit of lying tends to suppress the part of the brain (the amygdala) that responds emotionally to a “slippery slope” pattern of small and then larger lies (Neil Garrett, Dan Ariely and Stephanie Laxxaro, Nature Neuroscience Journal, October 24, 2016; reported by Erica Goode, New York Times, October 25, 2016).
Would individual longitudinal studies of the homosexual addiction document a similar SLIPPERY SLOPE—leading from early sexual experimentation, abuse, absentee fathers, etc. to the convenient lie (!) that the virtue of chastity doesn’t reach into the third option? Instead, why not REDEFINE the priesthood as not only a McCarrick beach house, but as a continental sheltered workshop? And why not indulge in word games so as to bless symptomatic persons in their couplehood?
As Cardinal Grech has proposed, while referring to nothing in particular, “stretch the grey area…”
Silence, Solitude, Obedience, and Love
In my city where I work, when it happens that something is snatched from you in broad daylight in the street, you raise the alarm by shouting “Thief!” at the height of your vocal power. This way, what occurred in isolation without witness is no longer hidden and your fellow travellers know immediately why the other one is running: they can distinguish among the wood, the trees and the forest and what is progressing in their respective and overlapping journeys. And many a snatcher has been caught by the bystanders through this simple outburst of culture, this cultural bellow, happily making it heard that the tree that falls does not go its own way unseen as if nothing ever transpired.
Homosexual “Love” a Gift? by Eduardo J. Echeverria at The Catholic Thing is worth a read. Echeverria quotes the Catechism; the Catechism quotes JPII’s Familiaris Consortio which unambiguously opposes Francis’ bloviating on homosexuality as a love-gift in the latest storybook of his “Life.”
A WHOLE NEW WORLD is the heading of the most critical news item here. Beyond Transhumanism is the article from “New Polity”. Transhumanism is the underlying ideology driving most of the insanity we encounter today. It is the belief that humans can achieve immortality, godlike intelligence and happiness by using technology to change the basic physical nature of the body itself. It is nihilistic in its attack on society. The mad dash towards artificial intelligence is just one part of it. The richest people in the world are backing this idea.
@ Silence, Solitude, Obedience, and Love
“There is one Spirit who breathes in all places. There are some people whom God takes and sets apart” (Madeleine Delbrêl).
An ode to the less known. They’re noticed early mornings when the church door is unlocked, drifting in silently commencing their particular devotions. Unnoticeable in the streets. Delbrêl’s almost plaintive poem, somewhat idealistic [aren’t all odes] still touches a reality. How many they are may be less than one would wish. Delbrêl’s lionization of the silent, compliant nobody was written within the hiatus of two great wars during a time that France [I believe it was Maritain’s observation] and adherence to the faith drifted apart perhaps for reasons unknown. We may speculate on the immense price France paid for victory and subsequent disillusionment.
Saintly, mystic poet Madeleine Delbrêl we may easily assume was reacting to the malaise evident in those with a voice. She by nature of her obvious contemplative soul disposed her to recognize ‘places’ where the Holy Spirit finds an unrecognized, unexpected home. We can make analogy to our plight here. Those silent, obedient nobodies may within their given capacity be doing more good than many of us who holler and display our ingenuity.