Mark P. Shea's Blog, page 34

Christian Witness vs. Christianist Culture War

So the other day, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who gets a load of death threats and hate from Good White Christianists, got wind that Paul Manafort, one of the crooks who worked for Trump, was going to be put in solitary confinement in a prison in the district she represents. Being a decent human being, she demanded […]

One of the remarkable things about prayer

…is that we can still pray this prayer for the men who went into battle at D-Day, because God exists outside of time: We cannot, obviously, change known outcomes so that the dead are not killed or the wounded are unharmed. But we can still pray for those men, in that hour, that they receive […]

Catholic Ladders

Amy Welborn found this cool thing about the rise and fall of Catholic Ladder, of which I have never heard, even though they were invented in my back yard as a teaching tool a century and half ago: The next spring. from March 17-May 1, Blanchet held a mission event primarily for French Canadians, downriver […]

Infiltration is, thankfully, taking a huge beating in the reviews

Strike the shepherd, says our Lord, and the sheep will be scattered. In times when the Church is decapitated, whether through persecution or corruption, you do not (to paraphrase the Chestertonian aphorism) wind up with people believing nothing. You wind up with people believing anything. Case in point, the rise of the Right Wing Catholic […]

Socialism for the Rich

John Steinbeck had us pegged decades ago: “Except for the field organizers of strikes, who were pretty tough monkeys and devoted, most of the so-called Communists I met were middle-class, middle-aged people playing a game of dreams. I remember a woman in easy circumstances saying to another even more affluent: ‘After the revolution even we […]

The Awesomeness of Human Invention

I’ve been noodling the Transfiguration lately

The story, interestingly, is told a couple of times in the liturgical calendar, once on the Feast of the Transfiguration in August and once in Lent. And now it’s one of the Luminous mysteries of the Rosary too. I have a fondness for this moment in the ministry of Christ because it comports well with […]

Ascension

Here’s a little taste of the Creed book I’m working on: The Resurrection appearances of Jesus culminate in an abrupt end after forty days when, as the Creed puts it, Jesus “ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.” The Ascension in Scripture The Ascension occupies a curious place in […]

Some biblical reflection inspired by a great Muslim man

And he took a child, and put him in the midst of them; and taking him in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.” John said to him, “Teacher, we saw a man casting […]

Three Children Shot in the Head by Cops

…is a perfectly typical headline from 2019 America.  So typical that it will be forgotten by lunch. “Three children raped by priest” still gets a rise out of people.  But not “Three children shot in the head by cops”. It’s worth asking why.  Why do people say, as they should, “The Church needs to fix […]