Interior Catholic

  • Women, Sex, and the Church

    I have mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, it broaches a lot of difficult topics we tend to shy away from, especially if our personal opinion isn’t a popular one—premarital sex, traditional marriage, women priests. These are topics we have to learn about, and not just from the media. We need to gather information from all sides, and learn for ourselves what’s truly right and wrong. The “mixed” part is, I don’t love the way the information is presented.

    Most of the time, I felt I was reading someone’s dissertation. There’s an introduction, an explanation of the popular opinion, and a conclusion of the opposing Catholic teaching. And a lot of footnotes. I’m not convinced the popular opinion was always accurate, either. It would explore the opinion of one person (whether it’s their book, or article, or something else) and claim the entire feminist view of that one topic is because of this one opinion. It used the farthest liberal examples, perhaps as a shock value (it was shocking), then explained its wrongness through the relevant Catholic teaching. It didn’t work for me.

    But, the teachings are sound. I wish it had focused more on Scripture itself rather than simply trying to prove the popular opinion wrong. I wish the focus was more on Catholic teaching, as the subtitle suggests, rather than radical feminist teaching.

    One essay I did like was on fertility. Even with this book being published nine years ago, it’s still a hot topic. The author of this passage went through infertility treatments herself, and speaks from a place of knowledge and experience. I learned more about both IVF and NaPro than I ever thought I’d know. The essay on the priesthood was also interesting, though for a different reason. The answer to “why no women priests?” can essentially be boiled down to “That’s just how it’s always been,” even if the real root of “always” begins with Jesus Christ himself (he had only men as apostles, after all). I’m not sure that was explained the best way it could.

    I’d like to read more on these subjects, in a less dissertation-style fashion. This collection isn’t inherently bad, but got too political for me at times. Perhaps I should’ve read John Paul II’s On the Dignity and Vocation of Women first. (No, I haven’t read it yet!) I know what the public opinions are—I want to read the Church’s teachings, rather than a mere comparison to the alternative.

  • Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

    Last week was a hectic one. I accepted a new job, to start in a couple weeks, and had to give notice everywhere that I was leaving both my current job and apartment. I had a music gig on Thursday in the city, one that I couldn’t practice for during the week due to a miserable cold. I was too tired to be excited for anything.

    But I got into the city early, knowing there was a place I could rest before the bustle of the gig. I’d been to the same place a year prior, when I was still learning that it’s okay to go into churches on days that are not Sunday. I was still figuring out this whole “Catholic” thing, often forgetting that I wasn’t a foreigner, and that these holy places were now a type of home for me.

    The Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton is a small chapel. In the few times I’ve been there, it’s sparsely occupied. You can hardly believe it’s in the midst of a bustling city, because you can hardly hear the traffic once inside. There’s music as you enter the space, and a place to rest, and the presence of God.

    St. Elizabeth lived next door to the building for a few years before moving to Italy. It’s had several iterations since then, but ultimately found a home as a shrine to the first American-born saint. It’s a cozy chapel. I still remember stumbling upon it a year ago, amazed by the peace I felt when stepping through the doors. Now, as I sat in the same pew a year later, I remembered that first visit: It was pouring. The rain had lashed against the door outside, and the few people inside glanced at one another. Glad I’m not out there, we all seemed to say, as we waited out the storm.

    I remember the sound of the rain more than the music. I remember standing by an intricately-designed window, barely able to see outside due to the decorated glass and pounding rain. I’ve always liked rainstorms, and that corner by St. Elizabeth’s statue seemed a fine place to witness it.

    There was no such rain this time. In fact, it was the perfect evening for the event to come, where people would socialize on the patio with drinks and listen to my flute as they looked out on the water. But I still looked forward to a break at the shrine. It was some mid-week time to calm my mind and organize all the things that had happened that week. I was still sick, too, and I like to think it cleared my sinuses as well.

    I don’t often find myself in that area of Manhattan. In fact, I seem to only be there once a year, for this same event. But I’m adding St. Elizabeth’s shrine to that annual ritual. A calm in the storm, so to speak. And maybe literally, too.

And they said to him, “Inquire of God, we pray thee, that we may know whether the journey on which we are setting out will succeed.”

And the priest said to them, “Go in peace. The journey on which you go is under the eye of the LORD.”

—Judges 18:5–6

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