Catholic Quagmire
Essays on How the Church Bogs down
by Jeffrey A. Mirus
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Book Description
This collection of essays, written between early 2017 and early 2019, focuses on the many ways in which Catholics and their leaders tend to reflect the thought patterns of the surrounding secular culture. When this happens, they fail to address key contemporary issues as if their Faith makes a difference. Topics include mercy, purity, marriage, the family, common parental mistakes, the public authority of the Church, false priorities in Catholic leadership, sexual orientation, human respect, and more. When the Church is infected by worldly ways of thinking, she gets bogged down, rendering ineffectual the mission of Christ.
Table of Contents
- Introduction: When secular patterns of thought paralyze the Church
- If the English cannot live in accordance with moral values, are they free?
- Warning: Our strengths are often our weaknesses. Same with the Pope.
- The marriage game: Musical beds, musical faiths, and no emphasis on fidelity
- Rigidity and conversion do not mix. But don’t be fooled by double-speak.
- Sex vs. Sexual Orientation; Prejudice vs. Discrimination
- Human respect: Not only a sin in our time, but a theology
- Spiritual abandonment in human care: The “differences” fallacy
- The priorities of Catholic leadership today, and how they must influence praise and blame
- Random reflections on public shootings and ultimate safety in our time
- Seven spiritual mistakes of “good Catholic parents”
- Christian insistence on purity and moral change
- Why can’t the Church stop harping on purity?!
- God made you like that, and I do not care.
- Time to give the lie to a culture in denial?
- Dangerous! Both religious exclusion and religious common cause
- Refuse to breathe thin air: Know the source of your convictions, challenge others on the source of theirs
- The perfectly legitimate public authority of the Church
- Successful societies are (always) rooted in the family
- Welcoming the Catechism’s changes on the death penalty
- The managerial class: Top companies are usually our enemies
- The secularization of Christ: A case study
- Beyond abortion: Responding to the deeper crisis
- What is missing in the Church today? What we brag about most: Mercy
- Are those who experience same-sex attraction prone to abuse?
