Check out this post by James Chastek on interpreting religious statistics. He makes three points: (1) An evaluation of religious statistics that looks only to the last 50 years is short-sighted in comparison with the long-term nature of movements in religious convictions; (2) people leaving the Church is an ambiguous statistic; it could be a [...]
Archive for the Posts Tagged ‘discernment’
Only excerpts or summaries of the posts are shown on this page. Click on the title of a post to see the whole post.Interpreting Religious Statistics
Thursday, June 16th, 2011Aquinas on Marrying to Support One's Parents
Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011Is someone obliged to marry if that is the only way he can support his parents? This article is from Quodlibetal 10, q. 5, a. 1. Whether someone is bound to contact marriage in order to support his father by the marriage dowry, if he is not able to support him otherwise. Objections It [...]
Lying and Moral Intuitions
Saturday, February 26th, 2011Peeter Kreeft's post affirming the obvious rightness of Live Action is deeply flawed. Despite his claim to know logic well, the argumentation consists mostly of begging the question, ridiculing his opponents, and appeal to majority opinion. One argument from analogy is present, but not entirely sufficient.
Summer Discernment Program in Norcia, Italy
Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011The Benedictine monks in Norcia, Italy, are offering a discernment program this Summer, July 4-29. The purpose of the program is to offer young men a time to discern God's will for their life in a more concentrated way than normal worldly circumstances permit.
Priestly vocation, holiness and service
Friday, May 15th, 2009Can the desire "to become perfect," to grow in holiness, be one's motivation for being ordained a priest? On first consideration, this might seem totally inappropriate, as the priesthood is not given in the first place for a man's personal perfection, but in order for him to serve Christ, as his representative. Thus, St. Alphonsus [...]
Detachment and Discernment
Saturday, February 7th, 2009In order to discern, we have to be detached. Why? First of all, having a pure heart, or a heart detached from temporal and limited goods, enables us to have the spiritual vision by which we can see God's will. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." While this primarily pertains [...]
What do we discern
Friday, February 6th, 2009What is the object of discernment? Does discernment mean only finding what is best among options that are all good? Or does it refer also to distinguishing morally good choices from morally bad choices? As noted previously, Fr. Peter in his article on discerning personal vocation, attributes to discernment only the apprehension or determination of [...]
Discerning Your Personal Vocation
Sunday, January 18th, 2009I came across an interesting article by Fr. Peter Ryan, How to Discern Elements of Your Personal Vocation. [No longer accessible at the original address]. The article is a bit disorganized, jumping back and forth between points, but it is thought provoking, and raises some interesting questions, which I'll address in upcoming blogposts. He gives [...]
Questions for those discerning a religious vocation
Monday, January 5th, 2009Fr. Philip Powell gives some good practical points, and questions that those discerning a religious vocation should ask themselves. These questions to ask when discerning a vocation may be found, together with comments on the Anti-Christ, and the difference between magic and prayer, at his blog Domine, da mihi hanc aquam!
I am a Catholic seminarian and deacon in Vienna, and a teacher at the