Mark P. Shea's Blog, page 107

Hey Western Washington! Mark your Calendars!

I will be speaking tomorrow night at St. Monica’s on Mercer Island at 7 PM.  I’ll be talking about the Our Father. Then on October 24 at 7 PM I’ll be talking about 101 Reasons Not to be Catholic at Holy Family in Kirkland. And on October 25 I will be speaking at St. Mary […]

A Word About the Term ‘Intrinsically Immoral’

I mentioned the term “intrinsically immoral” in my discussions of the death penalty.  Lots of people are confused about that term.  Calling a sin “intrinsically immoral” does not make a sin extra super duper gravely evil. Let’s back up.  The Church distinguishes grave sins from less serious ones.  Minor sins (or “venial” sins as they sometimes are called) […]

Two Sonnets

I’ve been trying my hand at a bit of poetry because my heart has felt creaky. Here are a couple of sonnets: Sunday Evening Healing Walking by the urban roar, monoxide fills my grey lungs and I exhale, exhale till nothing spirit is left. I’m all hide and sinew. A hollow cup, ungrailed. How shall […]

Jimmy Akin, Fount of Amazing Arcana, writes me…

regarding the series I am doing on Jesus and the Canaanite Woman for the Catholic Weekly, specifically the second piece in the series concerning the question of whether Jesus could learn things.  Sez he: Howdy, Mark! Saw your piece on Jesus learning, and your commenter is mistaken in some of his claims regarding dogs. First, […]

“Me Too”

So a little initiative by women on Facebook took off like wildfire the other day.  It simply consisted of women who have been sexually harrassed or assaulted writing “Me too” on their walls.  The simple point was to try to get it through thick male skulls that This Is a Thing and not a rarity.  […]

Michael Gerson on the Appalling Idolatry of the Religious Right

Yep: “There is more at stake here than bad politics. When Christians ally their faith with bias and exclusion, they are influencing how the public views Christianity itself. They are associating the teachings of Jesus Christ — a globalist when it came to the Great Commission — with ethnonationalist ideology. This should be a sobering […]

Pope Initiates Schism with American Conservative Catholic Death Penalty Fans

Even the Orthodox are all like, “Get serious, you guys!” to American conservative Catholics pretending Pope Francis’ remark that it is contrary to the gospel is some huge problem: To kill people unnecessarily is contrary to the gospel. Huge baffling mystery that puzzles American conservative Catholics alone resolved! The spectacle of Catholics striving to drag […]

My religion is cooler than yours

My pal Tom McDonald, finder of astonishing Catholic arcana, will periodically make that remark when he posts some amazing oddity out of Catholic history and culture.  I thought of that the other day when we were having one of those discussions about the Catholic Puritan strategy for shutting down whatever it is the Catholic Puritan hates […]

The Church is not Going to Reverse its Development of Doctrine on the Death Penalty

As much as kill crazy American Conservative Catholics and their close intellectual allies, the Communists and Islamic despots may stamp their feet and demand it, the Church is not going to stop calling for the abolition of the death penalty.  Pope Francis just made this clear again by telling us that capital punishment is contrary […]

Peter Stockland at the Catholic Register

gives me hope, not so much because he agree with me but because he has mercy on the weak and struggling, which is what the gospel is all about.