So Conrad Black wants me to take birth control pills. Because I’m so un-modern for refusing to take a daily dose of cancer-linked, fertility-killing hormones that Conrad Black would, like the men who ensured birth control pills for men never happened, never consider taking himself. A pill that has resulted only in an uptick in unplanned pregnancies and catalyzed the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, especially among women. ()

They said he’d be one of several media-friendly papabili. He wasn’t. They said he’d be young. He’s almost as old as Cardinal Ratzinger was when he became Benedict XVI. They said he would be African. He isn’t.

They said if he wasn’t African, there was a good chance he’d be from North America. He’s from South America.

They said he’d give the Church another chance to re-evaluate its stance on matters such as gay marriage and women priests. He won’t. ()

The following article originally appeared in Altcatholicah on July 19, 2011. My co-worker had just finished training me in the new office software and was about to let me test it out on my own. “If you have any problems using it, just give me a call,” she said as she scrawled her phone number on a Post-it note. ()

Hundreds of thousands braved the weather for Friday’s March for Life, commemorating the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Some observers will no doubt dismiss the enthusiastic young marchers as products of privileged, religious homes and educations, who don’t know anything about the problems real women face, and whose parents have brainwashed them into going on the March. But the reality is quite different. Pro-life activists are not by any means all cut from the same cloth. ()

This January, people will ask us why we march. We all have our own reasons. I’ve marched before for all children called home too soon. But this year I’ll carry one in particular in my heart.

“I wish we’d never met.” Plenty of relationships end with those words. The drama. The heartbreak. The desire to pull an Eternal Sunshine. I’ve thought those words during break-ups. ()

Last semester, I taught my seventh grade students about narrative structure. They wrote original short stories, which I was reading right around the time of the Newtown shooting. I couldn’t help but see some connections between our class discussions, talk about guns and violence in the media, and their finished work. “Drama,” I had told them, “comes from conflict, and conflict comes from having two opposing forces: a protagonist and an antagonist.” I had explained to them the four parts of a plot—exposition, rising action, climax, and resolution. ()

Last week I had the misfortune to stumble across the Women’s Ordination Conference’s hot new music video “Ordain a Lady.” Watch it at your own peril . . . I’m not really concerned for the peril of your soul in watching it, but rather of your artistic sensibilities. Yes, that was a cheap shot, but when you’re trying to emulate pop music it’s a good idea to not have someone who sounds like my grandmother as your vocalist. But I guess, given the fact that the Womyn Priest movement was started by people my grandmother’s age, I shouldn’t be surprised. Another cheap shot? Well, the whole video was full of them so I didn’t think anyone would mind. ()

With the holiday season there always comes a twinge of homesickness. I don’t just miss my family, I miss that old, taken-for-granted, cozy sense of belonging to a place and to the people there. After four years of college and four more years of moving from one house and set of roommates to the next, I’m used to belonging nowhere, regardless of where I hang my clothes and arrange my books. I just don’t think about it much. Thanksgiving and Christmas remind me that I belong nowhere–not always the most comfortable thing to be reminded of. ()

Irish pro-life groups are dismayed by the deluge of pressure pouring on Ireland to change its abortion laws following the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar from a complicated miscarriage on October 28th at University College Hospital Galway.

Despite the paucity of information surrounding Savita's death, media outlets and abortion activists have blamed laws prohibiting abortion and even the Catholic Church for her death, relying on emotional accounts of Savita’s husband, Praveen.

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Either Mom is the one behind the camera taking the photo or she’s having an all-too-common bad-hair day and avoids the photo op. Whatever the case, it appears photographs of the kids with their mother are a rare find. ()

We are part of God’s kingdom, and though it may sting us that this world chooses not to acknowledge that fact, it nonetheless remains true. We are in this world, but as followers of Christ, we are not of this world. Nor can we afford to place our hope in the movement of temporal persons and events.


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"Can I have this?" my seven-year-old son asked me while I was shopping recently. I looked over and saw that he was holding up a bloody ax.

A fake bloody ax, of course. One of those plastic gory Halloween props you wish you hadn't seen. Especially when held by your seven-year-old son. ()

I remember my first time. I had just turned 18. It was my freshman year of college. It was time for me to be an adult. There were two options before me, a smooth talker and a war hero; I chose the war hero. As it turned out the guy was kind of a loser, but he was pro-life and the other guy was an ardent proponent of abortion. I have no regrets about voting for Bob Dole, except for the whole voting for someone who always referred to himself in the third person part. Also the losing thing was pretty disappointing, since Clinton went on to veto the Partial Birth Abortion ban twice and coin the now infamous phrase, “that depends on what the definition of ‘is’ is.” ()

Last night was a busy one for me, I went straight from a holy hour celebrating the beginning of the Year of Faith to watch the Vice Presidential debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan. It was one of the first times I witnessed a political debate between two practicing Catholics. Most of the debate was wonky, but when the moderator asked both men how their Catholic faith informed their position on abortion, the room was instantly hushed and all eyes were glued to the television screen. ()

Here's a perennial question that turns up wherever Catholic moms gather: a young mom admits, "I always thought I wanted a big family. But now I have a toddler and a baby, and I feel like I'm losing my mind. I love them, and do my best to take care of them, but life is boring and hard. I feel like I'm not good at this, and I don't really like my life at all. It makes me feel so guilty, but I can't imagine going through this even one more time with one more kid—never mind the six or seven or eight more times!" ()

Women Speak For Themselves.                                          









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Among my peers, those whose mothers made a concrete career sacrifice to stay home with them or be more flexible are open and proud about it. The ones whose mothers worked consistently full time don’t really discuss their experience openly. It comes out in remarks about raiding the fridge and playing video games all evening, and getting away with a lot in middle school while their parents were away at work. ()

This is the first of a two part series.

There has been a lot of discussion about Anne Marie Slaughter’s recent Atlantic article, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.” I found the article—and the surrounding flurry of writing on similar topics—fascinating and encouraging. Slaughter’s candid description of pursuing the highest professional success, coupled with her fierce desire not to lose touch with her family, was reasonable, intelligent, and even brilliant. ()