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Can the Supreme Court Get it Wrong? MLK Jr Thought So.
Leave a commentJanuary 19, 2015 by Alex Johannigman
“I have a dream” that one day we will look back at Roe v Wade and the decades that followed it the same way that we look back at Dred Scott v Sandford, as an ugly blemish in our nation’s history that we overcame when we as a people recognized that all people are created equally with equal rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness regardless of age, race, physical or mental handicaps, wealth, or educational background.
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New Year’s Resolution Idea: Meet the Saints
3December 29, 2014 by Alex Johannigman
My New Year’s Resolution for 2015 is to learn from the saints. Each month this year I’m focusing on learning about a new saint that I’ve heard about and admired, but don’t know much about. As Catholics, we know the names of lots of saints, but most of us know very little about what they did, what their prayer life looked like, what they wrote about, and why they fell in love with God.
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You Can’t Be Christian and Support Torture
3December 23, 2014 by Alex Johannigman
Christ is pretty explicit about the need to love our enemies, and the Catholic Church directly states that torture “is contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity.” But for many it’s not so clear when “enhanced interrogation” is used against the “bad guys.”
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A Group of Men Go to a Strip Club, but Not for the Reason You’d Expect
Leave a commentDecember 10, 2014 by Alex Johannigman
Last week a dozen young men went to a strip club… to pray. I would love to see prayer groups outside strip clubs become as common as prayer groups outside abortion clinics since the two evils are so closely linked. Ultimately, the demand for abortion is rooted in a failure of men to fulfill their roles as protectors and providers for women.
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A Rabbi Walks into the Vatican and Shares Some Poetic Theology of Love
Leave a commentNovember 20, 2014 by Alex Johannigman
I’ve been hearing a lot of great things being said about the presentation given at the Humanum Conference by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi of the UK and the Commonwealth, so I decided to start by watching his speech. I was very impressed by what he added to the conversation. One of the things I admire most about the Jewish faith is how poetic a lot of their theology is. Rather than speak about all the problems that the modern definition of marriage has (high divorce rates, abortion and contraception, ignoring gender, etc.), he discusses why marriage as it has been understood throughout history is so beautiful and necessary.
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Show Mercy Even If They Don’t Deserve It
Leave a commentNovember 19, 2014 by Alex Johannigman
Whenever we have a hard time showing mercy to someone else because we don’t think they deserve it, it’s important for us to think about how much we don’t deserve the mercy that is extended to us from Christ. Whenever someone does something that really bothers me, I’ve been making an effort to think about if I’d want Christ to forgive me of the same thing. The answer, so far at least, has always been “yes”, even when they haven’t done anything to deserve my continued love and forgiveness.
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Now Listening to: Augustinian Soul. Yes, That’s a Thing.
1November 17, 2014 by Alex Johannigman
I often get the question from many of my devoted followers. “Alex, why do you call your blog ‘All That Catholic Jazz?’ You write about Catholic things, but you never write about jazz. And I’m pretty sure Catholic jazz isn’t even a thing!”
Ok. Confession time (pun intended): No one has ever asked me that, but I like to pretend that someone has at some point.
But if someone did ask me that, I would be answering their question today by presenting to them the first ever *drumroll* “All That Catholic Jazz review of Catholic Jazz.”
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Why You’re Probably Pursuing the Wrong Vocation
Leave a commentNovember 5, 2014 by Alex Johannigman
We need to stop viewing the “next step” in life, whether that is graduating, finding our dream job, or beginning marriage or religious life, as our ultimate goal and the point where we will become significantly happier and instead recognize that each of these are only checkpoints on our path to our true “God given vocation”: Heaven.
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Recovering The Lost Art Of Trying Things Out
1October 9, 2014 by Alex Johannigman
We’ve attached such a strong sense of commitment to vocational discernment that many of us are scared to even try something out until we are absolutely sure that it is what’s right for us. We can’t let this mindset continue to prevent us from effectively discerning our vocations.
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The Greatest Disease in the West
2September 30, 2014 by Alex Johannigman
The greatest disease in the West, according to Mother Teresa, has little to do with not having enough bread to eat, and everything to do with not having a loving community to eat it with. But what can we do to cure what afflicts our culture?
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