Texts

The Root & Branch Synod logo

Belonging and being Church: what’s Catholicism all about?

Belonging matters more than life or death. It gives us our approval, who we are to be. It is the hardest thing in the world to receive your approval and thus your sense of belonging from “Your Father who is in Heaven” rather than from those who can give you a quick fix.
16 mins read

How to recognize a tantrum

So many Catholics are dodging the tantrum and hewing to Our Lord. The responsum is unlikely to dissuade us from blessing God as we find God blessing us.
3 mins read

The dangerousness of the good

The word “Christian” has been sullied. It is no longer the adjective it should be, describing a series of attitudes and ways of being reminiscent of Christ, but a noun which carries with it a fake claim to righteousness, a pretext for freedom from social and legal responsibility, a justification for harsh positions unsubmitted to reason. I suggest that the word “sinner” be brought back into circulation instead.
47 mins read

Brought to life by Christ

As it turns out, my mind is of little importance. What is important is who has changed my mind. Both the big Who and the many, many secondary whos and whats we all represent for each other.
20 mins read
Fragment of Hans SFchäufelein, Christ as Good Shepherd from Das Plenarium, 1517 (Gift of Henry G. Friedman, 1961, The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Facing down the wolf: a gay priest’s vocation

Lies and violence in the heart of family and church life. That’s where my testimony begins. For whatever reason of God’s own, I have received the formal commission to live this reality as a priest... failure is one of grace’s preferred building sites.
9 mins read

Queerology podcast

James discusses his faith journey, René Girard and mimetic theory, the scapegoat mechanism, Sacred (or Holy) vs. Mysticism (or Mythification) of Divine as churches crumble, intelligence of victim, and grace and growth.
1 min read

Some notes for a Girardian reading of the Book of Revelation

Theological thinking is slow thinking... It is much more like feeling your way into a new relationship than it is achieving clarity about a new definition. And it is here that I think René Girard’s insight is so helpful, both as to method and as to content.
54 mins read