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.
Last week, the Missionary Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo filed suit to shut down Club Allure, a strip club operating next door to the convent. They allege that Club Allure violates a state law prohibiting adult-entertainment establishments within 1,000 feet of a school or place of worship. (You can read the complaint in PDF form here.) Read more
This June, on top of the usual Pride Week festivities that culminate in downtown Toronto’s Pride Parade, the city of Toronto hosts World Pride 2014, an annual international festival celebrated in a different city each year to highlight the culture, achievements, and activism of the world’s LGBTQ people as they strive for full legal and social equality. Only three cities have been World Pride hosts thus far — Rome, Jerusalem, and London — and Toronto expects World Pride to bring more than $130,000,000 of tourism dollars into the city. So it’s kind of a big deal. Specifically because of World Pride, teachers in the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association (OECTA) voted to “have a presence in the parade in support of students, teachers, and others in the LGBT community,” according to OECTA president James Ryan. Explaining the group’s convictions, he spoke of “trying to stand in solidarity with a group that is quite marginalized” and “their right to be free from bullying and harassment.” Read more
It’s not exactly a new idea, but few people have said it better. Discussing the pontiff’s plans for an October synod so bishops can review questions of family life in Catholic doctrine, former Irish president Mary McAleese (below) had some very direct remarks; she said it was “completely bonkers” as well as “profoundly wrong and skewed.” But if you ask me, the money quote is this: Read more
It’s no secret that the Catholic higher-ups really, really like procreation, and think that anybody who’s having sex should absolutely be making babies in the bargain. Birth control is selfish, right? But Pope Francis, loving and generous soul that he is, wants to look out for your interests by reminding you that you’ll never be happy as long as you waste your time raising kitties instead of kiddies. During Monday’s daily Mass, the pontiff spoke to an audience of decades-married couples, many of whom had been together long enough to make the question of procreation entirely academic at this point. Read more
A band of women have made the news recently for being ordained… and for being kicked out of the Catholic Church in the bargain. While many Christian denominations wouldn’t bat an eye at women in ministry, the Catholic Church still treats the priesthood as a boys’ club: only men are allowed. Even Pope Francis, lauded as God’s gift to liberal theology, considers that rule entirely unalterable. Though Francis wants to see women playing a greater role in Catholicism, he speaks about that role in very traditional terms — “the presence of women in a domestic setting” and “transmission to future generations of solid moral principles.” He’s not talking like someone who expects or supports women’s ordination. Benedict was even more direct about the chances of seeing women one day follow in his papal Prada footsteps. Read more
