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The first step in refuting the error in CRT is to understand it. Here’s where to start. I once saw a social media post making fun of people opposed to Critical Race Theory (CRT). It read, “I don’t know what Critical Race Theory is, but I’m against it.” The truth of the matter is that CRT is difficult to sum up, and so it has been hard for most people to understand what it says and doesn’t say. Parents, educators, politicians and the American Public found themselves hearing ideas without having the resources to evaluate their truth or even their true meaning. Buzzwords and inflammatory language substituted for information.  As a homeschool father, teacher and student of philosophy, I thought it would be important to get a handle on what this theory was about. Even more importantly, I a...

John M. Grondelski Among Cardinal Robert McElroy’s seemingly multiple objections to Catholic teaching is its sexual morality.  For McElroy, besides being unwelcoming and off-putting, Catholic sexual ethics distorts Christian moral life as well as makes assumptions that he rejects, by misusing in this context the old category parvitas materiae (“lack of serious matter”). In plain English, he rejects the notion that sins against the Sixth Commandment by their nature are mortal sins. In plain English, Cardinal Robert McElroy is wrong. It’s hard to know where to start with this somewhat complex point of moral theology, given that all the background and merits of the issue cannot fit in the brief space of a column. But one could start with the structure of a moral act.  Moral acts hav...

Sometimes the guy just wants to talk, but sometimes he wants to seize the floor. Sometimes he just likes to argue, but sometimes he wants to condemn, or disparage, or insult, or exclude, or otherwise proclaim his own superiority. Anyone who has tried to have a serious conversation on social media has seen this, or been the victim. Many people don’t want to listen. They want to talk. They want to be listened to. Others really do want to listen, but they can’t listen for long. At some point, they just have to talk. And both need to tell other people what’s what, usually what the other people should do with their lives. They have the answers, after all. Of course they should speak. In contrast to this, Pope Francis calls us to “the apostolate of the ear.” As he put it in The Name of God is Me...

The promise of the pontificate of Pope Francis has its roots in a Christmas card of sorts. On Christmas Day 2005, Pope Benedict XVI signed Deus Caritas Est (God Is Love), his first encyclical. There, he defined the mission of the Church: “The Church’s deepest nature is expressed in her threefold responsibility: of proclaiming the word of God (kerygma-martyria), celebrating the sacraments (leitourgia), and exercising the ministry of charity (diakonia). These duties presuppose each other and are inseparable. For the Church, charity is not a kind of welfare activity which could equally well be left to others, but is a part of her nature, an indispensable expression of her very being.” When Pope Francis was elected 10 years ago, on March 13, 2013, he spoke of his dream of a “poor Church for th...

A few weeks ago, in a rare burst of organizational energy, I was cleaning out some files when I came across a folder that hadn’t been touched in…I don’t know how long.  Before we moved ten years ago, for sure, and probably long before that.  The faded purple folder contained a stapled stack of papers, carefully typed.  It was my attempt at creating a ‘rule of life’ for myself, as a young mother.  The date at the top reminded me that I’d written it after the third of my six children was born, 19 years ago. I’d been in the middle of a busy season which was getting busier and craving, aching for, a sense of normalcy—and holiness—in the chaos.  It was ten pages long.   Ten pages of self-imposed prayers and practices, carefully scripted sacrifices, and rules for my...