Angela Bonavoglia's To-Do-List on Women for Pope Francis, with Theological Reflections from Ivone Gebara

At Huffington Post, Angela Bonavoglia has published a very fine open letter to Pope Francis entitled "For Pope Francis: A To-Do List for Women." The letter calls on Francis to stop talking about the role of women in the church, when the subjects that should really be under discussion are justice and equality. As Bonavoglia notes, further talk about where women's "place" is only further underscores assumptions that the male experience and perspective are normative, and women's experiences and perspectives are somehow to be wedged into the normative paradigm established by males.

Scott Lentine on Living with Autism: "Can't You See?"

About a year ago, I pointed readers of Bilgrimage to a blog by an amazing young man, Scott Lentine. Scott lives with autism, and has become an apostle of sorts for people living with autism and similar developmental challenges. One of the ways in which he educates the rest of us about the experience of those living with such challenges is by writing poetry.

European Court of Human Rights Finds Irish Government Responsible for Abuse of Children in State Schools Run by Catholic Church

In many cultures in which the sexual abuse of children is only now coming to the fore as an issue for public discussion, authority figures repeatedly engage in a game I think of as the Judas game: when Jesus speaks to his disciples of his betrayal at the Last Supper, Judas responds with feigned, insincere shock as he asks, "Is it I, Lord?" Is it I who will betray you?

Dylan Farrow's Story of Childhood Abuse by Woody Allen: Mainstreaming Discussion of Childhood Sexual Abuse in American Culture

In today's New York Times, Michael Cieply asks whether moral judgments will increasingly color the decisions that Oscar voters make when they cast their votes on films nominated for awards. In particular, Cieply asks what effect the open letter that director Woody Allen's adopted daughter Dylan Farrow published yesterday via Nicholas Kristof's Times column will have on Oscar voters' decisions this year. In the open letter, Farrow repeats claims she has made in the past (which Allen denies) that Allen sexually abused her when she was a child.

John Corvino, What's Wrong with Homosexuality?: "A Risky Lifestyle" (4)

Another excerpt from John Corvino's book What's Wrong with Homosexuality? (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2013)--this one sums up his chapter on the "harm argument" which maintains that homosexuality ought to be beyond the pale because it harms both those who are gay and society as a whole:

Father Tom Doyle Responds to Cardinal George: "What Is It They Did Not Know 'Then' That They Know Now?"

Father Thomas Doyle

I received Father Thomas Doyle's outstanding rebuttal to the claims of Chicago Cardinal Francis George about his dioceses's handling of the abuse crisis by email from the National Survivor Advocates Coalition several days ago. I've been waiting to mention this document in a posting here until after I had seen it online at the NSAC website. Meanwhile, I see that Robert McClory has published Tom Doyle's text at National Catholic Reporter.

Bishop Thomas Gumbleton on Abuse Crisis: "The Real Way and the Only Way" to Healing Is the Gospel Path of Reconciliation

I have a dream this morning: that Pope Francis might choose to listen to Bishop Thomas Gumbleton and not whatever dreadful  handlers (Carl Anderson?) he's now listening to about how he should respond to the abuse crisis. In his recent homily for the third Sunday in ordinary time, Bishop Gumbleton states,