Leah Libresco's Blog, page 23

How Do You Quantify the Francis Effect?

Over at FiveThirtyEight, I’ve rounded up Catholic nerds and data nerds to try to answer the question “How can you tell if Francis (or any other Pope) is a success?”  I actually made a bet with a friend on the success of Francis’s papacy not long after he became pontiff (and the bet comes due in [Read More...]

Ridiculously Over-Engineered Approaches To Empathy

When I was complaining about a plane delay on facebook, a friend of mine generously bought me a kindle copy of Margaret Drabble’s The Millstone, and told me that I might particularly enjoy it as a recovering Stoic and Kantian.  She was right. I also liked how much it reminded me of Ben Hoffman’s recent post [Read More...]

A Sondheim Song for Your Papal Mixtape

My parish started its Adult Sunday School (taught by Dominican friars) this past weekend, and we kicked off the semester with a discussion of the Pope’s encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si.  I’m not about to summarize the whole encyclical or even the whole class, but I am pleased to tell you that, if you’re building [Read More...]

I’m So Glad I Watched Colbert’s Biden Interview

I don’t have much to add to it, I just figured a lot of you would enjoy watching it, but might not have done it yet.  I got all verklempt.  

7QT: Agreement Theorems and Exponential Suprises

— 1 — I loved this NYT piece on an Italian street whose residents created a private facebook group to get to know each other better. Mr. Bastiani took a chance and posted a flier along his street, Via Fondazza, explaining that he had created a closed group on Facebook just for the people who lived there. He [Read More...]

Gateway Drugs to More Ethical Lives

A while ago, I mentioned that I’d found [X]-adjacent to be a helpful category when the X in question was bad.  E.g. rape-adjacent sex (unclear consent) may not break any laws or result in anyone feeling violated, but it makes it harder to identify predators, and it’s good to avoid sex that falls in this grey [Read More...]

The Beguine Model for the Benedict Option

  After reading Laura Swan’s The Wisdom of the Beguines, I’m tempted to tell Rod Dreher that the best name for Christians trying to find ways to live in community, inspired by monasteries but outside them, is probably the Beguine Option, not the Benedict Option. It’s hard to do too much better than this as [Read More...]

Starting Conversations During Francis’s Visit

Last week, I was a guest on EWTN News Nightly to talk about ways to have good conversations with non-Catholics that might be sparked by Pope Francis’s visit (plus a bit on the perennially popular topic of comparing the two most recent popes)     As usual, my general rule is to start conversations in [Read More...]

Dissenting Catholics Expect The Church Will Change

Pew has a big report out on American Catholicism, and I’ve got a piece up at FiveThirtyEight about the optimism of Catholic dissenters: Although dissenters are often tarred as “Cafeteria Catholics” who pick and choose from among the church’s teachings, without much thought for the whole, the dissenting Catholics that Pew surveyed seemed fairly confident [Read More...]

7QT: Math Haikus and Deaf Musicals

— 1 — When I was googling things like “two people looking at each other,” trying to find a picture for my post on why “You’re perfect!” and “I love you!” aren’t the same sentiment, I wound up discovering this word. Mamihlapinatapai: a look shared by two people, each wishing that the other will offer something [Read More...]