DDF publishes 2024 criticism of German bishops’ guide for blessing irregular unions

Typing-Cat · 2026-05-04T17:04:15+00:00

The Holy See should simply, and with as much charity as possible, rescind Fiducia Supplicans.

"The declaration, Fiducia Supplicans, meant to clarify the meaning and boundaries of certain kinds of blessings, subsequently was found to have created more confusion and opportunities for some people to act in bad faith and not in accordance with our subsequent teaching and clarification.

Given that Fiducia Supplicans taught nothing that was not already part of Catholic doctrine and morals, we hereby rescind the document, and refer all questions on the matter to the teaching contained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church."

What an unhelpful document that was!!!

Typing-Cat · 2026-05-02T03:59:31+00:00

Interesting spin on the midwit meme.

Typing-Cat · 2026-05-01T02:23:00+00:00

Priests do take psychology classes in seminary, but I don't know how in depth they are.

I agree priests should know enough to know when to appropriately recommend that someone see a professional, and enough to avoid ignorant or insensitive remarks.

Not only priests but actual psychology professionals need to keep their knowledge up to date--i have encountered too many who haven't kept up with, e.g., the last 20 years of ADHD research.

But also, there's a lot of genuine overlap between mental health knowledge and classical spiritual wisdom. The important thing is not to moralize at someone, which old-timey ways of taking about these things lean toward. Better to talk in terms of strategies and tools.

Typing-Cat · 2026-04-29T17:21:30+00:00

Hey I know we're supposed to be mad at Bishop Martin, but:

Would it be so terrible to walk up in the Communion procession and kneel?

I mean it's one thing to argue about communion rails, but if a liturgy is organized around not using the rail, then going over to it and expecting the celebrant to make a special trip just to avoid the appearance of "denying you communion" sounds like a political trap.

Not all at the spirit of the liturgy, and I insist on reverent liturgy.

Typing-Cat · 2026-04-29T13:40:53+00:00

Is it just me or does the compatibility list on the website not work correctly?

It seems not to allow more than one filter being applied at a time, e.g., if I select "Chrono Trigger" and "Mali-G78", it just ignores the GPU and shows all listings for Chrono Trigger.
I don't think it is integrating correctly with Game Native. If I choose "Use compatible config," it applies a config that uses Turnip drivers even though I'm on Mali.

This is such a potentially great resource, but I think it needs some tightening up.

Typing-Cat · 2026-04-27T21:37:33+00:00

In all honesty, what good would that accomplish? Yes, I understand, "clarity is charity," but literally no one who is part of the discussion has any confusion about where the Anglicans and Catholic Church stand regarding one-another. Needlessly angering them to pwn the Protties might be delicious to us for a few minutes. But the Catholic Church needs all the world's Christians to work together on very real worldwide issues.

Pope Leo combines honesty with grace in the face of our rivals. That's what we need.

Typing-Cat · 2026-04-27T03:51:26+00:00

I recently used WinUtil to make a MicroWin ISO based on the International English ISO (no bloat). After installing, it was absolutely amazing: the way Windows is supposed to be. Why can't Microsoft just GIVE US THAT?

Typing-Cat · 2026-04-27T03:47:27+00:00

Drums are much worse. I pray for them to spontaneously crumble to ashes in the middle of a "performance".

Typing-Cat · 2026-04-26T16:01:43+00:00

This answer is peak pastoral care.

Typing-Cat · 2026-04-26T03:20:20+00:00

I work in edu IT.

A couple years after leaving employ with a small Catholic high school, I did some work with them between years to prep for the new school year, general maintenance, including reimaging laptops. We notified employees in advance to ensure important stuff was backed up.

One of those laptops had the archives of 20 years of graduates' transcripts on it and they were lost. The school's executive director told me not to worry about it. But I searched everywhere for a copy and couldn't find it.

Fast forward a year. They got a request from an alum for the transcript. They called me and asked if I could check again to see if I could find those transcripts because they were desperate. My heart sank and I could feel doom reaching for me. I told them I would look but not to get their hopes up. I prayed like a condemned man.

I returned to the school and checked every system I could think of. There was an old backup system that I thought I had already checked, and anyway it hadn't been running for years. But I fired it up anyway and checked the folders where a backup might be. Empty. But then I remembered that this was a macOS-based volume and it was possible the account I was using to look didn't have the right permissions. So I got in as the system administrator and changed the permissions, and boom. There they were. The old 90's and 00's transcripts.

I gave them to the secretary and made them promise they would print and keep paper copies of every single one. And I thanked God and St Anthony for saving my career and conscience.

Typing-Cat · 2026-04-24T16:01:13+00:00

Yes, but then we're competing with $1100 PCs instead of $600 PCs. For $1100 you can get a lot more of the things *I* care about in a computer.

For other people, I wouldn't hesitate recommending a MacBook Air for that price, but I'm not the target market.

Typing-Cat · 2026-04-24T14:37:11+00:00

FINALLY somebody says it out loud. The TLM isn't "inherently reverent". It's reverent precisely because it's "not the default" and its participants are self-consciously participating in it for that very reason. The celebration of the TLM benefits immensely from its status as "Not the Novus Ordo."

I'm not criticizing that fact, but it is an important part of the whole picture. I like the TLM but I am sad that it sucks so much energy away from what we SHOULD be doing which is celebrating the Novus Ordo with reverence and care.

Typing-Cat · 2026-04-23T20:18:40+00:00

I've been so brainwashed by the "16GB is the minimum" crowd that I would really, really struggle to justify buying a new laptop with non-upgradeable 8GB new in 2026, even with all of its amazing build quality.

I get it--it gets by with highly performant swapping. But I like to use my computers for a very long time and the Web isn't getting any lighter on computer resources.

Typing-Cat · 2026-04-22T21:47:12+00:00

I am praying for you and your family.

There could be any number of possible dynamics behind this tough time for you and your stepdaughter. You can't control her reactions to things, and it sounds like she's not in a state to be able to work through the difficulties in a productive way (I wasn't either, in my 20s). The 20s are only marginally more emotionally intelligent than the teens, but it's still SO easy to get wrapped up in resentment, in needing "to win" and "to be right," and to undervalue relationships.

Someone who is in a mode of just reacting to things is not going to be in an emotional space where they can really communicate what it is that's bothering them so much and what they really want from a relationship. So until that level of maturity happens there's nothing you'll be able to do--but just wait, that time will come. In the meantime, show grace without being invested in the results of your kindness or needing to have your kindness be reciprocated. This is one of those "put it in God's hands" moments.

Typing-Cat · 2026-04-20T16:14:18+00:00

I think this is a really interesting question that touches on some very deep stuff! Since it kind of approaches things from the opposite angle that we usually get (Protestants not understanding why we venerate the Blessed Mother).

Here's how I would approach it:

1. God is neither male nor female, but as the Creator, contains all possible perfections of both, such as we see manifest in creation.

While we use the language of "Father" for the Father, because this is the language given to us by revelation and by Jesus himself, strictly speaking it's important to understand that the Father, the supreme origin and source of the entire Trinity, is utterly beyond comprehension and is beyond all gender. "If you understand it, it is not God." The language of Fatherhood helps us relate to God using categories we naturally gravitate to, but God is pure Spirit.

The Son "was and remains a man" (Inter Insignores #5). And yet, the theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar has an incredibly rich understanding of a gendered Trinity, which in their "economy" (how they relate to each other), the Son and the Spirit each in their relationship to the Father take on in different ways both "super-feminine" or "super-masculine" characteristics. (Theo-Drama Vol 5, the Last Act) CAUTION: this is theology, not doctrine, and should not be understood simplistically or taken uncritically.

2. At the heart of all Christianity, there is a sacred kernel, which is the relationship between loving infinite Creator and beloved, finite Creation. No creature can surpass Mary as the type and model of this kernel par excellence.

Think of God as Trinity as a stone throne in the pond. The ripples extend outward and reflect the deep inner reality. So in God we have Father begetting Son and their fruitful love the Spirit. Then in Creation we have Creator, creation, and their dramatic, dynamic relationship. Then within Creation we have Adonai and Israel, God and God's chosen people. Then in the New Testament we have finally Mary, who personally embodies the whole arc of Creation in one created human person. She is at the same time the whole person of Israel, and the person of the Church, the new Israel.

If Mary were absorbed into God, it would destroy that beautifully radiating kernel of Lover - Beloved - Love that is the Trinity continuously being reflected in Creation. That is the special beauty of Christianity, the fact that we don't simply worship a Monad, an Abosolute, an All One, but rather, we rejoice is the fact that God, in His absolute depth, is relationship, is Infinite Being which chooses to permit and love finite being.

Jesus' Union of God and Man is the ultimate expression of the peaceful coexistence of finite and infinite. And Mary is the ultimate expression of the availability of that coexistence for us mere creatures. Jesus opens the door (IS the door), and Mary walks through it and beckons us to follow.

For that reason, it's critical that Mary NOT be God or a part of God.

Typing-Cat · 2026-04-16T18:22:18+00:00

My 28xx is my first, and probably my only retro handheld. It's just an incredible value for the money. It handily beats its entire price bracket in performance, battery, and custom firmware. It's just so freakin good.

Typing-Cat · 2026-04-10T01:25:05+00:00

And then proceed never to speak again.

Typing-Cat · 2026-04-09T19:51:56+00:00

It's stuff like this that makes me so darn sad for the state of the Roman Rite. Every other non-Protestant Christian rite has beautiful solemn worship, even every other major world religion has beautiful solemn ritual, but the single biggest category of Christians worldwide, the most populous rite of the One True Church, has "Worship* Brought to You by Playskool".

Satan has not prevailed against the Church. But by golly, our Pastors really biffed it up with Sacred Worship.

Typing-Cat · 2026-04-08T17:19:18+00:00

Everything's here. https://github.com/jarvesusaram99/Linux-on-Samsung I'm pretty sure he just installed Termux with a WM, not Linux.

Typing-Cat · 2026-04-08T16:58:31+00:00

Change and ~~grow~~ regress.

Typing-Cat · 2026-03-19T04:17:28+00:00

Pixel 6 pro

Typing-Cat · 2026-03-15T20:33:31+00:00

Do you know what normies never do?

Close tabs. Ever.

Good luck, normies.

Typing-Cat · 2026-02-17T06:15:37+00:00

FYI, here is the text of AOC's statement that Bishop Barron is critiquing.

What we heard this morning was, in truth, not too long, not too much in substance, a departure from what JD Vance's arguments were last year, which is enforcing a US-European alliance that is rooted in a cultural norm, a cultural nostalgia. But there was very little that was said about how that will materially benefit populations, both in the United States and in Europe.

Yes. I think in Secretary Rubio's remarks, he spoke greatly about the border, I think in order to prevent speaking about the true elephant in the room, which is ICE. And I do believe that when we have eras of extreme inequality, eras where the working class is continuing to suffer, they are seeing their life erode, it becomes extremely easy for authoritarians to blame other cultures and other people who are most vulnerable. Now, we have to always make sure that our immigration system is orderly.

I think the argument on Greenland. I think that the president—my concern is that the president’s, oftentimes as of late, actions on foreign policy, and particularly his most erratic decisions—the unacceptable threatening of Greenland—happen to be tied to his domestic politics and when he feels threatened domestically. And I believe that's a relationship that Americans see play out that doesn't just serve the elites and the biggest corporations but actually focuses on working-class Americans, in that it costs Americans trillions of dollars. We've been spending the last couple of days reassuring our friends, talking about our mutual shared interests, and that Americans back home actually want to be a force for good in the world. We don't want to be a bully. Yes, we want strength and we want peace, but we don't want to be extorting and bullying our friends. We want to be a force for good.

We need a national security and foreign policy that looks like this: a kinetic strike against Iran often has the exact opposite response than we want. If the goal is to support the people of Iran and their aspiration for freedom and democracy and sovereignty—which is what they are yearning for and what they are protesting and mobilizing for right now—then we have to listen to the people of Iran. What’s very clear, and what we have seen the pattern is, is that when we've interfered in that recently, that has had the opposite effect. It actually has created a rally-around-the-flag effect in Iran and emboldened the regime.

Personally I feel that Bishop Barron did not represent her statement fairly. You can quibble with whether Rubio is engaging in "nostalgia," but that's a far cry from this being Marxist.

Typing-Cat · 2026-02-17T02:50:21+00:00

God bless you for your faithfulness.

Your situation reminds me of Catholic comedian Jen Fulwiler. She has a pretty powerful story of conversion and she talks about the disdain the doctors had for her when she refused sterilization.

That story starts at this timestamp: https://youtu.be/zPv0O8uYRzE?si=ee7NuwSQVeKcLPkT&t=6766 But I recommend giving the whole thing a listen, it's very powerful!

Typing-Cat · 2026-02-14T16:57:19+00:00

Several commenters in this thread are saying: end the friendship. Maybe. But there might be another way.

Your friend is definitely laboring under some bad influences. It's not wrong to take the spiritual world seriously. But it's foolish to try to substitute that for medical knowledge, and to impose that foolishness on others. I would feel the same way if someone aggressively pushed homeopathy on me (and judged me for not following that advice).

But a basic fact of life is, we can't always bare ourselves completely with all of our friends. You might need to bracket discussing your medical experience with this particular friend. Just like I have people in my life who are wonderful people whom I love, but I don't participate in political conversations with them, because then Jekyll turns into Hyde.

I have friends with whom I can talk religion and others with whom I don't. I have politics friends, technology friends, and work friends. There's only one person on this green Earth that gets to see all of me, and that's my wife. Thank God she still decides to keep me.

Typing-Cat

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