In early 2012, I had been keeping a low profile online for the past few years as I concentrated on full-time graduate study in theology. With the publication of my book My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints, it seemed like a good time to return to Catholic blog readers’ radar. This I was able to do thanks to Patheos Catholic Channel Editor Elizabeth Scalia, who offered me the opportunity to start my own blog on... Read more
I just noticed that the offensive advertisements that have long been appearing on National Review Online are now at the bottom of my blog, attempting to lure readers to other sites via images of cleavage and lurid headlines like “20 Celebrities We Didn’t Know Were Gay Until They Came Out.” As a Patheos blogger, I recognize that advertisements are necessary to subsidize the content. However, I find these ads particularly offensive in that they use exploitative sexual imagery and voyeuristic... Read more
Rachel Balducci, the co-host of Catholic TV’s “The Gist” and best-selling author of How Do You Tuck In a Superhero? And Other Delightful Mysteries of Raising Boys, just published an interview with me on her Testosterhome blog about my book My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints. Her first question gave me a chance to talk about what Christian hope is–and what it isn’t: First off, I really enjoyed your book. I cried... Read more
Cross-posted from my “personal stuff” blog, The Dawn Patrol: The online home of America magazine today features “How God Heals Sexual Abuse: An Interview with Author Dawn Eden.” An excerpt: What do you want readers to take away from your writings? I want people to know that Jesus, in winning the victory over sin, has won the victory over all the sins committed by us and against us. This is true for each one of us. The good news is... Read more
[Updated 7/2/14, 9:04 a.m., with sample tweets, EEOC response, & request for suggestions for further action.] As the taxpayer-funded Oklahoma City Civic Center prepares to host the latest public “Black Mass,” it is worth remembering what caused the cancellation of the Black Mass that was to be hosted at Harvard University in May. Certainly the public outcry and prayers of reparation had something to do with the Harvard cancellation. But I believe another important reason why that “Black Mass” was called... Read more
Cross-posted from The Dawn Patrol: Fr. David Meconi, S.J., editor of Homiletic & Pastoral Review—the foremost U.S. publication for priests and pastoral caregivers—has published an editorial endorsing My Peace I Give You, my book on healing from childhood sexual abuse. He recommends it as an example of how the Church under Francis is moving forward to help the wounded. In the editorial, “Abuse and Scandal,” Fr. Meconi writes: Perhaps, God allowed us Catholics to become the opprobrium of the nations... Read more
Did you know that one of Jack Nicholson’s first starring television roles was on “The Hour of St. Francis”? In the episode, filmed in the early 1960s, he plays a teenager discerning a vocation to the Franciscan Order. Really! Watch: Nicholson was raised Catholic. Although, at last report, he was not practicing, he remains vocally pro-life because he recognizes he would have been aborted were it not for his mother and maternal grandmother’s strong moral character. A bit of information... Read more
Rocco Palmo introduces the prepared text of the speech Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga delivered today at a Washington, D.C., conference with the observation that Rodríguez “tends to replace a good deal of his scripted content with colorful off-the-cuff reflections.” Since I had the good fortune to be at the talk by the Honduras cardinal—who, as Palmo also notes, is Pope Francis’s foremost adviser—I will do my best to fill in some of the gaps between the prepared text and the finished version.... Read more
As I wrote earlier, the promoter of the Black Mass at Harvard has a long history of ridiculing victims of sex abuse. He does it under the guise of debunking “false memory syndrome,” but his attacks go well beyond debunking, using vituperation and ridicule against victims and those who seek to help them. Here’s the deal. Harvard does not care about offending the Catholic Church. So the school is ignoring Catholic calls to dissociate itself from the hateful “Black Mass”–despite... Read more
TAKE ACTION: After you read the post below, here is what you can do to take action. Original post follows: Reading the Anchoress’s excellent coverage of the “Black Mass” that is being promoted at Harvard University, I did some checking up on the man calling himself Lucien Greaves, the face of the Satanic Temple, which is behind the sick event. It turns out that Greaves was previously known as Doug Mesner, which apparently is also a pseudonym: his real name,... Read more
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