Sara Lin Wilde is a recovering Catholic (and cat-holic, for that matter - all typographical errors are the responsibility of her feline friends). She lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where she is working on writing a novel that she really, really hopes can actually get published.
What’s the best way to rid your school of deeply conscientious teachers? Try drafting a restrictive-and-unusually-specific morality clause. Make it so unrealistic that most teachers will have to lie to follow it. Then sit back and watch some of your best educators leave for reasons of conscience, while keeping the liars on the payroll. It’s hard to blame Catholic-school teachers in the Diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana for choosing to affirm a strict Catholic moral code built into their contracts; after all, their livelihoods are at stake and it’s a tough job market. But at least two professionals affiliated with Our Lady of Fatima, a Lafayette parochial school, have announced their resignation as a direct result of these restrictive clauses. [More…] Read more
If you want to know whether Catholicism is about to get more conservative or liberal, don’t consider what the Church is saying about God. That stays more or less constant. Instead, look at what it has to say about the devil. From that perspective, it seems like the Church is heading into a very conservative historical moment with Pope Francis at the helm. [More…] Read more
For a while, there was hope. Catholics and concerned non-believers alike wondered if perhaps this Pope, who showed signs of humility that were missing in his predecessor and who spoke about refreshing and renewing the institution, would take decisive action on the international epidemic of Catholic officials shielding child-abuser priests. After all, this was no Cardinal Dolan, who paid abusers to voluntarily leave their positions, nor a Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga who said he would rather go to jail himself than allow the authorities to investigate accused priests. Read more
In a recent audience, where he met with dignitaries from other Christian communities, Pope Francis had a few words to say about ecumenism — a dialogue between different denominations or religious groups in search of common ground. His speech for the occasion included shout-outs to Jews, Muslims, non-Catholic Christians, and — surprisingly — “those men and women who, although not identifying themselves as followers of any religious tradition, are nonetheless searching for truth, goodness, and beauty.” The media latched on to those words with interest, proclaiming the pontiff’s intention to create new alliances between the Catholic Church and the “nones.” Was Francis really calling on the irreligious (including the spiritual-but-not-religious as well as Humanists) to “work with believers to build peace and protect the environment”? My advice to atheists: tread cautiously… Read more