What’s the oppposite of Schadenfreude? Isn’t there a word for that feeling of disappointment when people behave better than you expect? (A word other than “being a jerk?”)

Someone asked a question of Fr. Z:

During the Agnus Dei at Mass this morning, two unfamiliar teenage
girls and a man, who I suspect to be their father, entered our rather
small church and made their way to a pew.
I was saddened to see as I returned to my seat after receiving Holy
Communion that the aforesaid trio were presenting themselves to
receive, and that even though our priest knew they’d arrived late, he
went ahead and distributed the Eucharist to them.

So my question is this: Should the priest have quietly...READ MORE

It seems that a tenth of parents regret the names they gave their children. An astonishingly low figure, considering how many kids named ”    ” are cropping up on the playground.

You may have noticed that there’s nothing inside those quotation marks. That’s because, no matter how stupid a name I put in there as an example of a stupid name, someone out there would say, “HEY, we just had that name engraved on 63 baby shower invitations, and besides it was my grandfather’s name, and besides it means ‘God is on our side,’ and besides my husband just lost his job and his left leg, and I have Piblokto Syndrome but we’ve decided to carry the child anyway, and I was just about to come back to the...READ MORE

Amanda Marcotte is utterly fed up with “empty feel-good words and delusions about gender norms.”

My advice to Marcotte:  stay away from mirrors.

She recently flipped out over a study indicating that women increasingly long for “a more traditional lifestyle.”

The study does seem, frankly, a little bit lame.  But what fascinates me are Marcotte’s objections, which are uniformly and outrageously sexist.  Here we go:

Marcotte’s sexist objection #1:

[T]he survey found that 66 percent of mothers would rather be a stay-at-home mother than a working parent . . . But the same survey found that 36 percent of men also said they wanted to stay at home . . . It appears what this survey is measuring...READ MORE

Now that Columbus Day is over, maybe I can safely admit:  we celebrated, by doing two of my favorite things, eating and reading.  We read about Christopher Columbus, and we ate Italian food. 

When discussing history with my older kids, I always hammer home the following point: anyone who tells you that this or that issue is perfectly simple is either stupid or lying.

Here’s a satisfying case in point:  this Salon article reminds us that, despite what renowned scholar Dan “I know how to type” Brown tells us, it wasn’t the mean old misogynistic Church who led those infamous European witch hunts.  Weren’t you taught that innocent women had to die because repressive religious fanatics...READ MORE

Raising children brings so much joy, fulfillment, and meaning to life.  It also brings guilt by the boatload.  It is impossible to raise another human being without routinely screwing up in monumental ways—and that’s when you’re trying.

Spiritually mindful parents will recognize that wallowing under a load of crushing guilt is actually a subtle form of pride:  by dwelling on our failures, we are making too much of ourselves, and too little of the redemptive power of grace, which can be accessed through daily acts of hope and trust in God and in Mary as the true mother of our children.

So that’s for the holy types.  For the rest of us, here is a handy cheat sheet.

Note:  Proposed...READ MORE

According to The New York Times, a new study shows that injectable contraceptives popular in Africa are making HIV infection rates rise.

The most popular contraceptive for women in eastern and southern Africa, a hormone shot given every three months [probably a generic version of Depo Provera], appears to double the risk the women will become infected with H.I.V., according to a large study published Monday. And when it is used by H.I.V.-positive women, their male partners are twice as likely to become infected than if the women had used no contraception.

You may think that the rise in rates of HIV transmission comes because couples using hormonal contraception are less likely to be...READ MORE

As long as I can remember, being in the pro-life movement meant forging ahead because it was the right thing to do, and not because you thought you were actually getting anywhere.  You rallied and sent letters and held signs and held your nose to vote for the least bad candidate . . . but you didn’t really expect anything to change until the Second Coming.

There is still plenty of bad news.  The statistics are dreadful; and, most chilling of all, some people are now willing to admit:  yes, this is clearly a human baby resting in his mother’s womb.  Let’s kill him anyway.

On the other hand, there is hope.  Just in the last week, the abortion industry has taken several hard hits.

—I...READ MORE

Yesterday, I shared a few strategies for forcing

encouraging your husband to be a little more chatty.  Today, a heavier topic:  how to have an awful but necessary conversation.

N.B.:  I don’t mean to give the impression that if women just follow some simple steps, then healing will magically occur in a deeply troubled marriage.  On the other hand, it’s common for good relationships to go through times when pain outweighs the joy.  But it’s also common to come out of the bad patches stronger and more united than you were when things were chugging along peacefully.  So here are a few ideas for how to approach your un-talkative husband when there’s something wrong:

Don’t ambush him.  If...READ MORE