A Sound of Sheer Silence

Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Surely we do not need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you, do we? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all; and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. Such is the confidence that we have through Christ towards God. Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.  (2 Corinthians 3:1-6) In the last week, I have found articles from two writers who I have discussed in these electronic pages--Melinda Selmys and Damon Linker--announcing that they are leaving the Roman Catholic Church.  While there are differences in the rationales offered by both for...

I continue to maintain that Melinda Selmys is the most interesting voice coming from the conservative Catholic end of the pool (notwithstanding that many on that side think that she is Not a True Conservative).  What I like about her is her willingness to push on some of the neuralgic points of Catholic philosophy and theology, moving beyond the "happy talk" style of many on that end.  In doing so, she often points out questions and problems that I had not seen before or thought about in any depth.  Often I do not agree with her conclusions, but her formulation of the problem is usually very helpful. Over the holiday weekend here in the U.S., she produced a pair of articles that are examples of why she is an interesting voice.  Her first post, entitled "10 Reasons Why Homosexuality Is Not a Natural Law Issue,"  is actually mis-titled.  Her argument is not that traditional Catholic natural law has nothing to say about homosexuality, but that what it does ...

I really do like Melinda Selmys's writing.  I think she probably the most thoughtful and the most honest advocate from the traditional Catholic position on sexuality, even when I vehemently disagree with her conclusions .  Her stuff on LGBT issues does a good job of calling out the truly destructive elements of the Catholic Right , including folks like Austin Ruse.  She is an interesting and important voice in a space that is often bereft of original and nuanced thinking. Her recent piece similarly thought-provoking, though perhaps not in the way she intended.  The middle of the piece, arguing that the CDC's recent guidance that women of fertile age that are not on birth control should abstain completely from alcohol is overly cautious to the point of absurdity, seems completely correct (FWIW, my doctor sister echoed many of the same points in a Facebook post).  So, I think we can agree that telling women to avoid alcohol completely if they may become pregnan...

1.  Two weeks ago, the Episcopal Church voted to give general authorization for same sex weddings to be conducted in Episcopal Churches.  Having followed this story as an outsider, the outcome was not a surprise--all of the commentary I had read suggested it was going to pass.  What was surprising, at least for me, was the margin of victory.  Out of 160 Episcopal bishops, only 26 voted no, with five abstentions; it other words it passed with an 64 percent margin of victory, which is an enormous number.  But it is actually even bigger than that--if you take out the retired bishops, the assisting and auxiliary bishops, and the the bishops from places outside the United States that are part of the Episcopal Church (all of whom are included in the vote), you end up with only eight  dicocesan bishops voting no out of 99 dioceses in the 50 States.  That's a land slide in by any measure. I also found the reactions from the other elements of the Anglican ...

Now that we've gotten this climate change thing sorted out , it's time for all of us to refocus our attention back to where it belongs--sex!  Yes my friends, this summer, and into the fall, are going to bring us a number of events that are going to place the attention of many on who is doing what to whom and under what circumstances.  The first domino fell on Friday, in the form of the Supreme Court ruling on the gay marriage cases.  But it's not over yet, not by a long shot.  Observe: Last week,  we got the prepatory document for Synod on the Family Part II, Electric Boogaloo . [Ed. Note:   Official English translation here ]. If you have been following this story, you will not be surprised to hear that it is a mixed bag!  For example, it calls out "a certain vision of feminism that considers maternity a pretext for the utilization of women and an obstacle to their full realization."  (Boo!).  But then it follows up with praise for "[a] s...