The overlap between the anti-vaccination movement and reactionary resistance to the Church’s magisterium has been well-documented. In one recent example, Janet Smith, a professor renowned for her defense of Pope Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae, argued for Crisis that “the Church...
I was recently assigned to read an article about loneliness and existential isolation for a class in my graduate program in clinical mental health counseling. The article presented a view of the human person that closely reflected the Catholic understanding...
How does one tell the story of the Second Vatican Council? It is a question that has fascinated many people over the past fifty years, challenged them as well, because for one thing, more than one story is involved. Why...
It has now been more than ten days since the release of the transcript of Pope Francis’s September 12 encounter with 53 Slovak Jesuits in Bratislava, and we have finally had a response from a representative of the EWTN network....
Can traditions be harmful to the spiritual life? If so, what makes them harmful? Even more importantly, how could a tradition become harmful if it was once beneficial? As Catholics, we are called to hold fast to a certain tradition....
On the Moral Significance of The Moral Significance of Modern Food A recent article in First Things likely garnered little attention, but I think—if you’ll bear with me—we should pay some attention to it. The article by John Kainer is...
Finding a ride to Mass can be a struggle for a Catholic person with disabilities. We are told all the time by those around us that we should make every effort to attend Mass—only to find that our options are...
I’m not sure how to begin an essay like this because it’s a genre of writing that I have not really done for Where Peter Is before. This site features everything from personal reflection to theological disputation, but blind rage...
These days the term “gaslighting,” meaning the emotional manipulation of someone that causes them to question their sense of reality, is frequently used in the context of the news media and interpersonal and organizational dynamics. The word comes from the...
In a recent conversation with a Reformed Christian acquaintance, I was commended for converting to Catholicism even though certain aspects of Catholic teaching are extremely offensive to my preexisting political and moral opinions. I told him that in some sense...
I’ve been involved in a lot of programming related to religion at my corporate workplace. In the name of diversity and inclusion, one event I’m organizing currently is centered around the question, “How do you bring your religious self to...
I’ve read much from Pope Benedict on the matter of papal primacy in the last few years, and it strikes me as interesting that unlike the other popes of the last century and a half, he almost always proposes a...
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