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Catholic

2020-11-29T21:48:39-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Parable of the Talents Revisited

Last updated on: November 29, 2020 at 9:48 pm By Edwin Woodruff Tait

Over the past few weeks, during Year A of the Eucharistic lectionary, we’ve been hearing a series of parables from Matthew told by Jesus shortly before his crucifixion. Many of these are of a rather threatening nature. The foolish bridesmaids are shut out in the dark. The slave who didn’t invest his master’s money is, again, thrown out into the darkness. The “goats” who didn’t recognize the King in the person of the “least of these” are cast into the... Read more

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2020-11-01T21:06:31-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Pope, the atheists, and salvation by grace

Last updated on: November 1, 2020 at 9:06 pm By Edwin Woodruff Tait

Some of my conservative evangelical friends have been upset (or perhaps even gleeful?) this past week over the rather old news that the Pope said that atheists could go to heaven. Apparently an article from the Independent in 2015 has been circulating on social media, no doubt because it was originally published in October. I mistakenly thought it was something new the Pope had said, at first. But it’s still worth commenting on, since this weekend is when many Protestants... Read more

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2020-10-28T15:07:02-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Loud Live the Dogma: Amy Coney Barrett and the Secular Fallacy

Last updated on: October 28, 2020 at 3:07 pm By Edwin Woodruff Tait

Progressives are understandably in mourning due to the confirmation yesterday of Amy Coney Barrett as an associate justice of the Supreme Court. I have mixed feelings about the confirmation myself. I will shed no tears if she votes to overturn Roe v. Wade, which I think is a badly argued decision and a serious obstacle in the path of any just and reasonable resolution of the abortion controversy. (I also am under no illusions that reversing Roe is a panacea,... Read more

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2024-06-17T12:17:21-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Allegory gone wild?

Last updated on: June 17, 2024 at 12:17 pm By Edwin Woodruff Tait

My trusty colleague and sparring partner in matters of Biblical interpretation, “Fellow Dying Inmate,” wrote a post back in August on the book of Revelation that upset a number of readers. Of course, writing on Revelation is bound to upset a lot of people. I would have thought that Catholics would be less inclined to go ballistic on these subjects than evangelical Protestants, but alas, I’m no longer sure that’s true. Four Gospels or four constellations? FDI argued, in particular, that the... Read more

Bible

2020-08-23T14:33:43-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Standing on the Promises: Why Catholics believe Peter is the Rock

Last updated on: August 23, 2020 at 2:33 pm By Edwin Woodruff Tait

During my 19 years of being an Episcopalian, this particular Sunday in the church year was always uncomfortable for me. Every three years Matthew 16 would roll around and the priest would explain why “we” didn’t read this passage the way the “Roman Catholics” did. And almost invariably, the explanation would strike me as rather feeble. It was part of my general sense that as an Episcopalian (and as a Protestant generally) I wasn’t signing on to full-throated, unequivocal Christianity... Read more

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2020-08-21T00:42:55-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Remembering St. Bernard: Theologian of love

Last updated on: August 21, 2020 at 12:42 am By Edwin Woodruff Tait

One of my grandmother‘s favorite medieval Catholics was, as it happens, St. Bernard of Clairvaux. He wasn’t the only Catholic she admired, but he was perhaps the only medieval or post-medieval canonized saint who meant a lot to her spiritually. And for good reason. The emphasis on a “personal relationship with Jesus” that means so much to modern evangelicals was, to a great extent, a product of Bernard’s theology and the Cistercian movement to which he belonged. The warrior Christ... Read more

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2020-08-16T19:39:06-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Rejoicing in the House of God’s Prayer

Last updated on: August 16, 2020 at 7:39 pm By Edwin Woodruff Tait

I love the fact that the Old Testament readings at Mass correspond, as a general rule, to the Gospel readings. There’s something to be said, to be sure, for the approach of the Protestant “Revised Common Lectionary,” which provides a continuous reading of the Hebrew Scriptures. For study purposes, that is of course the best method. But for Mass, I think it’s not ideal. As Catholic Christians, we read Scripture liturgically and intertextually. Scripture is a vast organ whose stops... Read more

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2020-08-05T18:46:23-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Vatican II and the Hermeneutic of Continuity

Last updated on: August 5, 2020 at 6:46 pm By Edwin Woodruff Tait

It’s becoming more common for conservative Catholics to criticize Vatican II. Most recently, Anthony Esolen has written a piece for Inside the Vatican calling for Catholics to ignore Vatican II and “move on.” Esolen refers to an earlier piece by Archbishop Vigano, also published in Inside the Vatican. Vigano, in turn, alludes to criticisms of Vatican II made by Khazakh bishop Athanasius Schneider published on the LifeSiteNews website. The three pieces have their differences. Schneider’s is by far the most... Read more

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2020-07-17T00:16:19-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Jumping out of the Flying Ship: Resisting False Traditionalism

Last updated on: July 17, 2020 at 12:16 am By Edwin Woodruff Tait

I was planning to write a blog post, or possibly a series, on “cancel culture.” And I still intend to. I want to write about some of the concerns I have with the way progressives use social shaming to short-cut substantive debate. I want to address the complex issues surrounding when it’s appropriate to resort to some form of “excommunication,” and when it’s important to remain in respectful dialogue even with people whose views we may regard as profoundly... Read more

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2020-07-14T13:38:06-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

But it’s not modern

Last updated on: July 14, 2020 at 1:38 pm By Edwin Woodruff Tait

Nearly ten years ago, when I lived in Huntington Indiana, I volunteered to read to a 96-year-old religious sister (of Our Lady of Victory Missionary Sisters, headquartered in my town). In fact, I spent much of the time talking to her, and listening to her. Sister Roseanne was one of the most fascinating and remarkable people I’ve ever met. She had lived through the Great Depression, had traveled the world, and had joined the order in her 60s, serving in... Read more

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