Does Jesus Care About Medical Gaslighting?

June 1, 2023 By Jennifer Fitz

I write a fair bit about the mental game of living with chronic illness, and maybe that seems off-topic for a religion website. So let’s compare a tweet from an actual doctor who regularly sees patients with autoimmune diseases versus this morning’s Gospel. First our tweet, and this is so typical of the experience of many patients with difficult-to-diagnose illnesses: Just saw a teenager with autoimmune disease and #POTS who was sent to a certain "ability lab" outpatient rehab program,... Read more

How Do You Exercise When You Have a Serious Chronic Illness?

May 11, 2023 By Jennifer Fitz

My friend Emily DeArdo and I have a fitness club. It meets via text message, and it involves reporting in how we’re doing and how our day went, and congratulating each other for making good decisions where our health is concerned. And here’s the thing: Emily is the girl who has kept me going on exercise, and not giving up, when it was extremely difficult to believe that it mattered. When you have a chronic illness, exercising is really hard.... Read more

What Religion Does Taylor Swift Practice?

May 9, 2023 By Jennifer Fitz

I’m out of the closet as a Taylor Swift fan, even though I fully recognize that significant parts of her work and political beliefs are contrary to the Catholic faith. I won’t say I am comfortable holding onto the true, good, and beautiful in a mixed-package that has some serious concerns as well? But also at times Swift expresses Catholic things, and ordinary human emotions and experiences, with spot-on artistry and magnificence. So I work with it. The question I volunteered... Read more

Girls Who Do Boy Things

May 3, 2023 By Jennifer Fitz

From a conversation this evening: Your daughter who likes to do “boy” things will be much happier as a girl-who-does-boy-stuff than going through life pretending to not be a girl. Don’t let sexist haters keep your daughter from enjoying: fast cars contact sports science math dark colors trains firefighting yard work heavy machinery carpentry electronics dinosaurs martial arts sci-fi sports bars electric guitars short hair comfy shoes chainsaws grilling steaks professions that earn a living wage . . . or... Read more

Something Deeper than a Boycott

April 23, 2023 By Jennifer Fitz

There reaches a point where you lose your patience with being mocked. With the latest round of businesses using campy men in drag to promote their products, I’ve hit my limit. I’m tired of my femininity being reduced to absurd stereotypes. I’m tired of being insulted and belittled. I’m out of patience for men anywhere on the political or social spectrum who deign to instruct women on what it means to be “feminine.” I know what it means to be feminine... Read more

How Can Catholicism Help with Disorders of Sexual Attraction?

March 31, 2023 By Jennifer Fitz

It doesn’t take much ink to sum up the Catholic view of disordered sexuality: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Matthew 5:27-28 I can’t be certain, but I would hazard that there are very, very few adults who never ever experience disordered sexual attraction. Jesus makes it clear that even if... Read more

The Cause-of-Death Equivocation Fallacy

March 18, 2023 By Jennifer Fitz

Today we’re looking at a particularly abhorrent fallacy I ran across this morning, and no, I’m not going to give any attention to the offender. By the end of this tutorial you should have no difficulty spotting it when you see it in the wild. (If you’ve never been quite sure what “equivocation” means, the Wiktionary definition may help.) The fallacy runs like this: Person A died of a cause described in the medical terminology as XYZ. Person B also... Read more

Long Covid in Athletes

March 16, 2023 By Jennifer Fitz

Way back in the fall of 2020, what caught my eye in reports of “long covid” were accounts from physicians and nurses who previously had been physically active and professionally ambitious, but now no amount of determination and perseverance could shake off their persistent, debilitating fatigue. Recently I was surprised, therefore, when someone I usually look to for level-headed, logical, data-supported analyses was convinced that “long covid” was purely an anxiety-related disorder. Since I follow several (real, credentialed, not-quacky, not... Read more

How Strict is the Fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday?

February 20, 2023 By Jennifer Fitz

I have a friend who will be sitting the bar exam on Ash Wednesday. She’s young and healthy, but still: What a high-pressure situation! She needs to be as mentally sharp as possible, and she has to have the stamina to make it though the day’s exam without flagging. A poor performance means, at best, another round of studying and exams; in a worst case it could completely derail her legal career. It is not the kind of day when... Read more

When Church Leaders Spout Blarbage

February 16, 2023 By Jennifer Fitz

My writing friend and I have started identifying a particularly painful genre of Catholic literature: Blarbage. If you write, you’ve probably been guilty of it at one time or another. If you read widely from Catholic priests, bishops, and lay opinion-leaders, sooner or later you’ll stumble on it. Let’s talk about what it is, how to identify it, and what to do when you encounter it. Blarbage is: Verbose.* Not just lots of wordcount (guilty), but often a truckload of... Read more