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The Ditch
This blog exists because my friends exist, and, during the past year or so, the conservative Catholics amongst them have started sharing, in furtive conversations, in half-ashamed whispers, a feeling...
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What Should I Do?
The speaker: someone I no longer think of as a good friend, but with whom I am still on polite speaking terms; a husband and a father of a parcel of children; someone who likes to give advice, whether...
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Modesty, and Why Men Talk Like That About It
A recent post over at Charming Disarray – in which the writer describes having to argue with Catholics against wife-beating and telling your wife what to wear – makes me realise not only that a rift in...
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Modesty: A Less Weird and Angry Approach
Alas! If you are going to move in Catholics circles, you are going to hear lots of other people’s thoughts about modesty (including mine. Ahem). You can either let it drive you mad, or you can develop...
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Entitlement
I’ve a number of friends who have been hurt by conservative Catholics with an inexplicable sense of entitlement to other people’s time, talents, or property. For example; I know a couple of booksellers...
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Bullying – First Thoughts
Since reading this post over at Charming Disarray, I’ve been mulling over her questions, apropos men (and women) who judge other women by their clothing: “…isn’t the bigger problem that they’re judging...
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How to Further Your Cause…
…especially if that cause involves saving either society or the Church, or both. 1) Be good at something other than condemnation. 2) Be able to see the good around you. This is not just because people...
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Let’s Review, Part 1
New topics can be added almost endlessly; it seems worthwhile, then, to pause for a moment to summarise the discussions thus far most closely related to Catholic roadkill. You’ll find the fuller...
View ArticleOn Turning Forty
Single women raised in conservative communities dread their fortieth birthdays. (I don’t know if the same is true for men; it would be interesting to know.) After twenty years feeling the sidelong...
View ArticleWe are the Culture
Those who have never been seriously hurt by their religious communities will think of apostasy in terms of truth and non-truth. Your religion is true, and that is the only thing that matters, so the...
View ArticleIt’s About Power
In the wake of the latest clergy scandal, theories abound. They all fall short. Those who blame religion and/or celibacy forget that the world is full of religious and celibate people who are not...
View ArticleCan We Stop Talking Judas and Start Talking Peter?
It is the custom among conservative Catholics, whenever a scandal surrounds a bishop’s failure, to refer to Judas, and to say something to the effect of ‘Even among the first bishops, there was a...
View ArticleQuestions to Ask When Choosing a Subculture (or When Getting Chosen by One).
Some of these come, not from my experience, but from the experiences of friends of other conservative subcultures (coughpersonalprelaturecough). The answers will have different consequences for...
View ArticleWhat Do We Change if We Stay?
Articles abound urging people who are leaving the Church to remain, so that they can, by remaining, save the Church (I think it’s just assumed that this is someone they’d want to do?) Well, obviously I...
View ArticleIntegroe in Ministry
Integroe Partners reviewed the Archdiocese of Sydney during the time of the Royal Commission. They were chosen by the Archdiocese for the job. You can find the report here. I looked through it, and,...
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The Pain of Plastic
Recently, Australia’s two leading supermarkets decided to charge for plastic bags, with the alleged intention of reducing plastic waste. Drama ensued. I didn’t notice it at first – I’ve been shopping...
View ArticleSitting with Mystery
People keep posting soundbites about God not being responsible for the evils in the world, and how stupid it is that people who blame God for bad things don’t attribute good things to Him and realise...
View ArticleIt’s Not a Crisis if It’s Always
I heard a comment recently about the Church being in crisis. I realised that I have been hearing such references since the 1980s, and that they include the twenty years before the ’80s. By this...
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