Category: Texts
Spirit, Witness, and Learning: Fiducia Supplicans and the LGBT endgame in the Catholic ChurchSpirit, Witness, and Learning:
We aren’t there yet, but the presence of people who are able in good conscience, and without fear to stand up, to bear witness to their lives in Christ, and to say that they do so as gay or lesbian people themselves, is the vital sign of what is to come next.
Catholicity, Sacrifice, and Shame: Subverting Polarization in Our Contemporary Ecclesial and Political Cultures
How do we, who know that God’s glory showed itself among us by being lifted up in shame, find the grace to live with our shame uncovered such that we are not inclined to shame others?
LGBT, the Church and the new rules of the game
By reaffirming traditional teaching on marriage, but insisting that same-sex couples are “blessable” rather than “contemptible”, Pope Francis has opened a way forward that will allow LGBT Catholics to be listened to on their own terms while maintaining the unity of the Church. Published by The Tablet, 4 January 2024 MY HEART SANK on hearing of…
“Sodomy” and “Homosexuality” Are Not Biblical Sins
One of my jobs as a priest is to help people discern which of the acts they have done (or might do) are genuinely sins―and which are not really sins, even though they might think they are. Priests do this so that people can participate in being forgiven when they have genuinely done something wrong…
What is scapegoating? Why Gay Catholic priest James Alison spent years learning why people target minorities
At the age of nine, Catholic priest and scholar James Alison realised two things. The first was that he was gay. The second was that his life would never be the same. “I did know immediately that basically, I was lost,” he tells ABC RN’s Soul Search. “I was afloat on a sea with no port.…
Conscience reveals to LGBTQ people who we really are
Published by Outreach, an LGBTQ Catholic resource, on 26 July 2023 In text messages released this past May, the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson described watching an online video of some Trump supporters beating a protestor, around the time of the January 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. “It was three against one, at least……
Humility: a loser’s virtue, the route to reality, or both?
Humility will make of gratefully perceived sameness the source of endlessly peaceful diversity. Because our bodies are genuinely different – by place and date of birth and many other specificities, but our pattern of desire is the same.
Signs of Change: The Bible’s Evolution of Divine Nonviolence (Book Review)
Tony Bartlett’s long-awaited new book is a major advance in understanding the almost unimaginable blast from elsewhere which we far too hygienically describe as “Divine Revelation”; and how it can be traced through the books we far too complacently bundle as “Holy Scripture”.
Wholeheartedness – “Being Found at Your Post”
I remember being convinced that I had a vocation, but that was long before I was able to question how much of my conviction was self-importance and a need to be special. Years of peeling away and undoing would be required if ever I were to fall into the hands of the living God.