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In response to Spears’ story, Father Matthew P. Schneider, LC, who teaches theology at Belmont Abbey College in Belmont, North Carolina, outlined four main requirements for a wedding to take place in a Catholic church. Either the bride or groom must be Catholic and free from any impediments, such as marriage to another person. Both the bride and groom must “intend what the Church does,” including recognizing marriage as something permanent, exclusive, and open to life.  They must also plan to raise their children Catholic. 4 main requirements for a wedding to take place in a Catholic church: 1. The man &/or woman is Catholic.2. Neither has impediments (married to another, etc.).3. Both intend what the Church does (permanent, exclusive, open to kids, etc.).4. They plan to raise kid...

In the early hours of Aug. 5, 1962, a woman was found dead at a house in the Los Angeles suburb of Brentwood.  The name she was identified by was Marilyn Monroe. She died late on Aug. 4. During her short life, however, she was also known as Norma Jean Baker, Mrs. James Dougherty, Mrs. Joe DiMaggio and Mrs. Arthur Miller — all parts in the drama of a girl who was lost in the world: a girl searching for a mother from whom she had been taken far too early and for a father she was to never know. She was the daughter of a father who had abandoned both her and her mother. Subsequently, the child had been taken into a state-run home. It was there, from her bedroom, that Norma Jean could look out to the nearby RKO Studios. At night, the film studio’s neon sign would light up her bare room. It...

The disciples approached him and said, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” He said to them in reply, “Because knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted. …But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear. Matt. 13:10-11;16 Regular readers of Between the Paws may have noticed a recurring theme I write about: the nature of computer programming and the parallels that exist between the moral, intellectual, and aesthetic lives that we are called to live. See: One may rightly wonder why I focus on programming. Is it the case that it affords a uniquely rich foundation of terms, concepts, and practices from which the human intellect is able to springboard to consider higher things? The idea is ri...

@cathoholicism, Instagram / ChurchPOP These are so great! 😂 The Instagram account Cathoholicism published six hilarious memes illustrating various types of priestly confessors. Many describe the real-life qualities in some confessors. Others may be fictional humor. 😂 Cathoholicism owner Brian Edwards designed each meme, humorously explaining six types of confessors: The Good Confessor, The Mystical Confessor, The “love is love” Confessor, The Chastiser, The Import, and The Slow Burner. Can you relate to any of these? Here’s the graphics below: @cathoholicism, Instagram @cathoholicism, Instagram @cathoholicism, Instagram @cathoholicism, Instagram @cathoholicism, Instagram @cathoholicism, Instagram Who is your favorite confessor?  Follow ChurchPOP: Telegram ChannelTruth ...

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Happy Friday friends,  JD and I spent much of this week on the road, mostly at a canon law conference. It was, for me, a wonderful chance to spend a few days with friends and classmates, and to revel in the minutiae of procedural law — which is as great a way to take a mental deep breath and recover my sanity as I can ask for. On the back end of that trip, we had a spare evening in St. Paul, Minnesota, and we thought it would be fun to find a bar, and record our weekly podcast there. We mentioned that plan on the show last week, in our Tuesday newsletter,  and on Twitter, in case any Pillar readers were in the area and wanted to grab a beer. Honestly, I thought maybe four or five people would turn up and it would be fun. But by Tuesday afternoon, we were getting panicked emails f...

Like many other people, I’ve stopped reading social media very often, because the way so many people despise so many other people gets too depressing. Wading into the hatefulness makes me feel icky. Even Catholics speak that way of each other, if far enough apart in theology or politics. Few seem even to try to understand why the people on the other side think the way they do. They don’t sympathize with their targets. That’s true of most of us, to some degree. We don’t sympathize as easily or as readily as we should. We don’t automatically try to understand how the other man came to be wrong, especially if we think he’s really wrong. Here are two priests, one real and one fictional, who exemplify real sympathy and its effects. The first I came across looking up the great Maisie Ward’s book...

A proposed state constitutional amendment in Kansas that would have declared there was no right to an abortion in the state was rejected Tuesday. It is a dark day where I live in Kansas. Literally. It’s raining for the first time in weeks. But it’s also a sad day because Aug. 3 is the day after the Value Them Both Amendment failed in a statewide vote. The Kansas Catholic Conference went all out to promote the amendment, which sought to restore the right to life in Kansas after the Supreme Court struck it down. Many Catholics (including me) spent the summer working and praying for its success.  It’s terrible that it lost, and despite the great hope I see for what comes next, it left me deflated. But then the Liturgy came through, as it so often does, with wisdom from God to pump me bac...

Listen to this story: In Brazil, a suspect in a burglary, who was hit by a priest’s car in May, died from the consequences of the collision on July 27. Forty-one-year-old Ângelo Nogueira, a drug user, allegedly stole about $7.50 in coins from a rectory on May 5. On May 7, he broke into the house again and took three sweaters and a T-shirt. He was spotted by Father Gustavo dos Santos shortly after he left the place, in the city of Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, in São Paulo State. Security video showed that the priest’s car chased Nogueira and struck him at the entrance of a parking lot. The car is then seen leaving the area immediately after the incident, with no aid provided to the victim. Nogueira was hospitalized on a handful of occasions due to the consequences of the collision. According to...

Whoa! 🤯 What do you think of this? A video of a Eucharistic host beating like a human heart recently went viral on social media. The video was captured on July 22 at Our Lady of the Rosary parish in Zapotlanejo, a town in the Mexican state of Jalisco, during Eucharistic exposition. Argentinian priest Father Carlos Spahn, who presided over Mass and Eucharistic exposition that day, says he witnessed the event. [See also: Follow ChurchPOP’s Telegram Channel!] He explained the video is authentic, however, he cannot confirm the alleged miracle, because he “does not have the authorization to do it.” Here’s the video below: Milagro en mexico mientras el padre Carlos Spahn exponía el santísimo la hostia empezó a palpitar. 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏...

As monkeypox—a disease that the CDC refuses to identify as a sexually transmitted disease, even though it is spread almost exclusively by men who have sex with men—continues to rage through the gay community, the complaints about “government inaction” have already begun. Claiming that the government has not done enough to keep the gay community “safe” from the disease that causes painful genital lesions—and is primarily spread through those lesions—New York Magazine has led the charge claiming that neither the City of New York nor the federal government has done enough. Demanding “more testing” and “more vaccines,” the gay community is calling on the federal government to do more to keep men who have sex with men “safe.” It seems that keeping gay men safe may be more difficult than anyone ...