…the way the “healthy sexuality” supposedly available outside the church seems to change with every generation offers a reason to be skeptical that all Catholic ills would vanish if Rome only ceased making “unnatural” demands like celibacy and chastity.

The sexual ethic on offer in our own era should make Catholics particularly skeptical. That ethic regards celibacy as unrealistic while offering porn and sex robots to ease frustrations created by its failure to pair men and women off. It pities Catholic priests as repressed and miserable (some are; in general they are not) even as its own cultural order seeds a vast social experiment in growing old alone. It disdains large families while it fails to reproduce itself. It treats any acknowledgment of male-female differences as reactionary while constructing an architecture of sexual identities whose complexities would daunt a medieval schoolman.

In the name of this not-obviously-enlightened alternative, Catholicism is constantly asked to “reform” away practices that are there because they connect directly to the New Testament — in the case of celibacy, to Jesus’ own example and his hard words for anyone making an idol of family life.

This seems like a bad bargain, no matter how much hypocrisy there may be in Rome.

Read it all.

Opinion | Why Celibacy Matters – The New York Times ⁦@DouthatNYT⁩ Interesting take… https://t.co/yUduZiZ4Pk

— Father Edward Beck (@FrEdwardBeck) February 23, 2019

Nigeria’s long-awaited presidential election went ahead on Saturday, marred by heavy gunfire in the north-east, killings in the south and reports of technology failures and vote buying across the country.

Some voters arrived at polling stations at 3am to ensure their ballot was counted in an election dominated by the current president, Muhammadu Buhari, and a former vice-president Atiku Abubakar.

Read it all.

Nigeria election marred by vote buying, tech failures and violence https://t.co/AFUboQgaxu

— The Guardian (@guardian) February 23, 2019

Here the light of eternity shines down on those who are ever neglected, insignificant, weak, ignoble, unknown, inferior, oppressed, despised; here it radiates over the houses of prostitutes and tax collectors… Here the light of eternity has been cast on the toiling, struggling and sinning masses. The word of grace spreads across the stale sultriness of the big cities but it halts before the houses of the satisfied, the knowledgeable, and the ” haves” of this world in a spiritual sense. It speaks over the death of individuals and peoples its everlasting word: ‘I have loved you from eternity; remain with Me; thus you will live.’ Christianity preaches the unending worth of the apparently worthless and the unending worthlessness of what is apparently so valuable. The weak shall be made strong through God and the dying shall live…

And yet the correct meaning of the cross of Christ is nothing else than radical development of the concept of God held by Jesus himself. It is, so to speak, the historically visible form which this concept of God has assumed. God comes to people who have nothing but room for God—and this hollow space, this emptiness in people is called Christian speech, faith. This means that in Jesus of Nazareth, the revealer, God inclines to the sinner; Jesus seeks the companionship of the sinner, goes after him or her in boundless love. He wants to be where a human person is no longer anything. The meaning of the life of Jesus is the demonstration of this divine will for sinners, for those who are unworthy.

–Dietrich Bonhoeffer, A Testament to Freedom: The Essential Writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (New York: HarperOne; Revised ed. of 2009), pp.52-53

#DietrichBonhoeffer ‘God comes 2 people who have nothing but room for God-+this hollow space, this emptiness in people is called Christian speech, faith. This means that in Jesus of Nazareth, the revealer, God inclines 2 the sinner https://t.co/gPWAIlHE6K #churchhistory #theology pic.twitter.com/mmykiuZfzh

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) February 23, 2019

Now, as Polycarp was entering into the stadium, there came to him a voice from heaven, saying, “Be strong, and show thyself a man, O Polycarp!” No one saw who it was that spoke to him; but those of our brethren who were present heard the voice. And as he was brought forward, the tumult became great when they heard that Polycarp was taken. And when he came near, the proconsul asked him whether he was Polycarp. On his confessing that he was, [the proconsul] sought to persuade him to deny [Christ], saying, “Have respect to thy old age,” and other similar things, according to their custom, [such as], “Swear by the fortune of Cesar; repent, and say, Away with the Atheists.” But Polycarp, gazing with a stern countenance on all the multitude of the wicked heathen then in the stadium, and waving his hand towards them, while with groans he looked up to heaven, said, “Away with the Atheists.” Then, the proconsul urging him, and saying, “Swear, and I will set thee at liberty, reproach Christ;” Polycarp declared, “Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me any injury: how then can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?”

—The Martyrdom of Saint Polycarp, Chapter IX.

23rd Of Febraury: Memorial Of Saint Polycarp Of Smyrna, Martyr, Early Church Father And Bishop.
Ora Pro Nobis. pic.twitter.com/dxkyFsl3RZ

— Sean Patrick (@seanpfriel) February 23, 2019

O God, the maker of heaven and earth, who didst give to thy venerable servant, the holy and gentle Polycarp, boldness to confess Jesus Christ as King and Saviour, and steadfastness to die for his faith: Give us grace, after his example, to share the cup of Christ and rise to eternal life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Today remember Polycarp of Smyrna –
“Eighty and six years have I served Christ, nor has He ever done me any harm. How, then, could I blaspheme my King who saved Me?….I bless Thee for deigning me worthy of this day and this hour that I may be among Thy Martyrs…” pic.twitter.com/3KsdKRaRHo

— The Project (@MartyrsProject) February 23, 2019

Almighty God, whose glory the heavens are telling, the earth thy power and the sea thy might, and whose greatness all feeling and thinking creatures everywhere herald: To thee belongeth glory, honour, might, greatness, and magnificence, now and for ever, to the ages of ages.

Thus says the LORD: “Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool; what is the house which you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things are mine, says the LORD. But this is the man to whom I will look, he that is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.

–Isaiah 66:1-2