Michael Sean Winters Asks, "Can the Church Round the Corner in 2019?": My Response

"Can the church round the corner in 2019?" Michael Sean Winters asks in an end-of-year reflection published today. I consider that question, and have to admit: I find my imagination faltering.

Family Funerals, Immigrant-Bashing, and the Weaponization of American Catholicism: Place to Which "Pro-Life" U.S. Catholic Leaders Have Brought Their Church

At a Catholic funeral for a parent, is it normal or usual to print at the bottom of the funeral program that anyone not in communion with the Roman church is not welcome at communion — especially when the SSPX members of this family trot to communion? /1

— 𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚖 𝙳. 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚜𝚎𝚢 (@wdlindsy) December 28, 2018

A Christmas Story

Since Christmas is a time for telling ourselves stories….

The Christmas story is one we have to make way for against all odds.

Calling the Bluff of Those Who Maintain That Roots of Southern White Evangelicals Don't Run Back to Defense of Slavery

I'm not a white evangelical now, but I was raised in the Southern Baptist church, with two Baptist grandmothers (one Southern and one Missionary) — so I know more than a little about white evangelical culture in the American South. My father's brother and his wife spent their academic careers teaching and (in my uncle's case) doing administrative work in Southern Baptist colleges. Their two sons are Southern Baptist ministers, as was their maternal grandfather.

Father Prado on Pope Francis: Wants to Deny Access to Priesthood to Gays Because He's Catholic — I Have Questions

Father Fernando Prado, author of the book The Strength of Vocation, in which he interviews Pope Francis and gets the pope on record "worrying" about gay priests and opining that it's better to keep the gays out of the priesthood, recently spoke to Crux. In an article entitled "Pope doesn’t back down from skepticism about gays in priesthood," Inés San Martín reports about that conversation and about Pope Francis' view that, in Prado's words, "homosexuals" should not have "access to the priesthood." 

Headlines to Read Side by Side: Pope Tells Abusive Priests to Turn Themselves in to Criminal Authorities; Police Are Enabling Rampant Abuse in ICE Shelters

Bill Chappell, "Pope Francis Tells Abusive Priests And Bishops To Turn Themselves In"

Michael Grabell, Topher Sanders, and Silvina Sterin Pensel, "Police Are Enabling Rampant Abuse in Immigrant Children's Shelters"

Two headlines from yesterday that should, I think, be read side by side. The pope is telling abusive priests and bishops to turn themselves in to criminal authorities, since the church cannot, he insists, police itself and solve the problem of abusive priests and complicit bishops without help from outside authorities.

Death of 7-Year-Old Girl in U.S. Custody, a Family Funeral, and the Inexplicable Cruelty of Right-Wing U.S. Catholicism: An Advent Conundrum

Sometimes I follow threads in Catholic discussions on Twitter down rabbit holes. I know I shouldn't do this, because the holes inevitably turn out to be dark, claustrophobic, and stifling.