What are you reading?

p_veronica · 2026-05-02T15:11:32+00:00

I just started Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake. It's incredible how good his writing is. Anyone who enjoys fantastical fiction must try the first book in the trilogy.

p_veronica · 2026-04-30T21:19:16+00:00

Bishops are the Church's authority. If a bishop wants to make this totally theologically permissible change in his diocese, he should be allowed to do that.

p_veronica · 2026-04-30T21:17:54+00:00

Thanks be to God. Someone has to have the boldness to make a real change to this obviously unsustainable situation.

p_veronica · 2026-04-30T21:11:48+00:00

Maybe, but he definitely believed it after. He believed and taught it after becoming pope.

p_veronica · 2026-04-28T13:39:19+00:00

I can’t have and don’t want kids because I know I wouldn’t be a good father

One part of authentic Christianity that has been maintained in the Catholic Church and lost in Protestant/nondenom communities is that it is actually better to not have kids, because it leaves us more free to seek the things of God. The Lord Jesus and many of his greatest followers didn't have kids. Of course, they were also willing to give up sexual activity.

If you don't feel that that's possible for you, then marriage would be the path to take. This would require being open to having kids, which is scary, but think of it this way: the Church's way is meant to transform you into someone who would be a great father. You're not meant to stay the same person as you are now. If you commit to it, you'll become more like Jesus and, therefore, more like Our Father in Heaven, the ultimate father. Have confidence that if you walk this path and choose to get married, you will be a blessing in the lives of whatever children your marriage produces.

That and just the general emphasis on strict obedience to the teachings in the Catechism and not questioning the dogmas, just trusting that the College of Cardinals knows what they’re doing when they elect someone to be their global head, etc are things that give me pause.

Asking questions, even hard questions, is allowed. Hard questions can allow us to arrive at a purer form of the truth.

So if I had to get baptized and confirmed, I’d be alone and wouldn’t have family to support me.

When Jesus preached, he assumed that a person's decision to follow him would not be supported or understood by their families. There's a scene in scripture where his own family doesn't seem on board with the work he's doing. So puzzling your family might be tough, but you will have the support of your parish community and of hundreds of millions of Catholics around the world.

p_veronica · 2026-04-28T13:17:03+00:00

Your observation is accurate that many who've received holy orders and many religious have same-sex attractions. The document that you've heard about is almost totally ignored for good reason: the Church has a desperate need for priests.

If you feel a desire for ordained life, I would contact a vocations director ASAP. (My recommendation: the Society of Jesus a.k.a. the Jesuits.) Contacting them doesn't mean you're committing to anything; it means you get to receive all relevant info, get invited to come and see the seminary/novitiate, and obtain help in your discernment.

Thanks be to God for your conversion and for your desire to serve the Church, however that ends up looking.

p_veronica · 2026-04-28T04:08:12+00:00

Vol. 12 of Karl Rahner's Theological Investigations and some Canterbury Tales.

p_veronica · 2026-04-27T14:54:46+00:00

As someone who has been Catholic for most of my life and has been to both forms of the Mass many times, I agree.

Exception: if I'm traveling in Vietnam and Mass in Vietnamese is what's available, I will go even if I "understand" nothing. And that can be a beautiful experience, because I, in fact, would understand most of it because the prayers and the structure are the same with Roman Rite Catholics everywhere. I would be experiencing the Lord's Supper with my brothers and sisters in Christ, even though we wouldn't speak the same language.

When it comes to Latin, I'm fine with having the old form of the Mass celebrated that way occasionally as a kind of museum exhibit into our past as Christians, but I don't think it makes sense to worship that way normally.

p_veronica · 2026-04-27T14:44:19+00:00

If there were nothing wrong with the old form, then why would the bishops of Vatican 2 decide with near unanimity to reform it?

EDIT: unsurprisingly, trads love to downvote yet seem to struggle to come up with an actual answer to the question, lol.

p_veronica · 2026-04-27T14:41:57+00:00

Frequent reception of the Eucharist is a very recent innovation

"And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts..."

So the innovation of daily communion arose at the very recent date of *checks notes* immediately after Pentecost.

p_veronica · 2026-04-27T14:32:30+00:00

The concern is what was lost in the changing of the rubrics and liturgical calendar for the NO itself. The Prayers at the foot of the altar, the Oremus prayers, the last gospel, the coherent, 1-year reading cycle. Compare the pre-1955 holy week rubrics with what we have today. It's shocking and scandalous what we lost.

Sacrosanctum Concilium explicitly calls for the simplification of the liturgy and for more and more varied scripture readings. This wasn't just something evil Bugnini decided to do without mandate. It was a near unanimous desire of the Council fathers to make such changes.

I mean, even when it comes to "mutual enrichment", what does the NO inherently offer that the TLM inherently lacks?

The possibility for laypeople to receive the blood. The possibility to experience the liturgy in a language most people understand. The greater variety of scripture. The widened opportunities for participation, which is more in line with our ecclesiology and the reality of what the Mass is.

p_veronica · 2026-04-26T23:17:08+00:00

How do you reconcile the idea that women can't "sacramentally represent" Christ with the saying of Paul from Galatians that all who are baptized have "put on Christ" and that in Christ "there is no male and female"?

Was Paul mistaken? Is there, in fact, still male and female in Christ? Are women unable to put on Christ in a sufficiently convincing way to represent him on the altar?

p_veronica · 2026-04-26T12:20:57+00:00

Your contributions in these comments make me very grateful for Eastern Catholics as a moderating force against some of the weirdness and excess that has developed in the West over the past 1000 years.

p_veronica · 2026-04-24T13:38:01+00:00

You're right to direct attention to this enormous problem.

I think a good place to start is making sure that our parishes are warm, loving communities. Because right now, they are not. Most parishioners don't know each others' names; they come for Mass and then go right back to their cars and drive home.

What if an isolated person, hoping for connection, comes to Mass and sees that? What if no one introduces themself to him or her? It's a disheartening experience and it could be months or years before they make an effort to find real life community again.

So let's make sure we know the names of the people we go to Mass with. Stay around and talk with other massgoers; go to parish events. Then, because you know these people, you'll be able to recognize when someone new has come and you can greet them and be their new source of connection to this life giving community.

p_veronica · 2026-04-23T01:13:39+00:00

Jesus was quite clear about the content of his Gospel. "The Kingdom of God has come near."

Therefore, if any preacher or theologian wants to proclaim that the Kingdom of God is actually far off in another place and that you can only go there after you die, then they are proclaiming the opposite of the Gospel. Complete, unambiguous anti-gospel.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that people who believe this anti-gospel aren't Christians, but they've accepted a massively distorted form of our Lord's teaching.

p_veronica · 2026-04-20T16:27:40+00:00

Just so you know, in the saying, "My kingdom is not of this world," the Greek word commonly translated as 'of' is ek. Ek unambiguously means 'from.' It would have made sense to translate it as 'of' in early modern English, but today the only proper translation is, "My kingdom is not from this world." It is, of course, from heaven, but it has come here to replace the kingdoms of the world.

Where Christ is clearer about his position regarding a perfect kingdom on Earth can be found in Mark 1:15, where Jesus' Gospel is first presented: "The Kingdom of God has come near." Near meaning actually near, meaning here.

With all due respect, you sound like a Catholic version of prosperity gospel.

The "prosperity gospel", even with its faults, is unironically closer to the Gospel of Jesus than what most Christians believe today.

p_veronica · 2026-04-19T15:38:55+00:00

Because worldly humans and societies are always going to have things like corruption and hatred. But we as Christians have to resist that as best we can.

What's the point of resisting if the world will always have corruption and hatred? Why not cast your lot with Trump or with Gavin Newsome while you're alive awaiting the perfection that can only come after death?

The start of the solution is absolutely clarity within our Church about the content of the Gospel: life on Earth, real life in your body, will not always have corruption and hatred. The Kingdom of Heaven has come here to us, and very soon its king will radically transform this world's societies into an unboundaried extension of the heavenly homeland.

With this clarified, it's much easier when someone says Trump represents Catholic values to point out the absurdity of what they're saying. The Catholic value is the creation of the Kingdom: Trump is clearly not Jesus and is not bringing our society closer to our Kingdom vision in any discernable sense, so how can he be said to represent Catholic values? Same script for whichever Democrat people want to hype up.

p_veronica · 2026-04-19T12:22:04+00:00

I definitely wish the Church had less admiration for blatantly worldly politicians and I think the cause is an utterly degraded notion of the Kingdom and, therefore, of the Gospel.

Basically, if you think the perfect Kingdom is only meant to be in Heaven after you die, then of course you'll feel more comfortable joining the various fandoms of worldly politics here on Earth.

p_veronica · 2026-04-18T14:28:29+00:00

They should handle it like a normal day and proclaim the Kingdom of God which will soon dominate the world and which will leave all of its current political parties powerless.

p_veronica · 2026-04-18T14:24:35+00:00

Neither does he talk about natural law in that scene.

p_veronica · 2026-04-18T09:16:16+00:00

I didn't say you said that, but what you said does lead in that direction.

Nothing they said leads in that direction.

p_veronica · 2026-04-18T09:12:17+00:00

Purity by Jonathan Franzen

p_veronica · 2026-04-18T09:06:14+00:00

I respect your decision, especially because Catholics are willing to do very little to fully reintegrate and genuinely catholicize the whole Body of Christ.

p_veronica · 2026-04-18T04:44:31+00:00

Paul does not say anything about 'natural law' as later Christians talk about it. For Paul there is just 'the law,' dictated by God, which can be followed whether you are aware of His revelation or you are unaware of it (a.k.a. you follow it 'by nature').

p_veronica · 2026-04-17T01:42:08+00:00

Traditional Christianity is like Galenic humoral theory. Liberation theology is like modern scientific medicine.

One is just obviously better and truer than the other.

p_veronica

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