This post begins a series of adult reflections on TOBET’s The Body Matters children’s Theology of the Body curriculum. Our staff was already educated in Theology of the Body and Catholic studies when we began, but writing these books has been a discovery for all of us. (Among our staff of five, there are six…
TOBET has done many things in our 17-year life, but there is one thing we are uniquely qualified to do: teach children the Theology of the Body. To interpret and re-express very sophisticated ideas in simple ways takes a special gift. I venture to say that Monica Ashour is one of the few who could…
This blurb came into my mailbox recently, from a blog called “Future Human”: “The life-changing forces of technology and globalization are re-inventing what it means to be human. Three-person babies. Extreme biohacking. Outposts on Mars. Sex robots. The union of man and machine. Even the end of death itself. The once-immutable facts about what it…
Profanity on primetime TV increased 69% from 2005 to 2010. And that’s just the major networks, never mind cable. I would have to assume that, by 2018, they’ve given up counting. So it’s not just my advancing age or sensitivity. We really are living in an Age of Profanity. I asked the resident millennial in…
Last week, I toured the “Painted Churches“of south Texas for a solid week. A pilgrimage route called “El Camino de Lavaca” has been established that includes most of the Catholic churches (painted or not) in four counties located in the Austin/Houston/San Antonio triangle. The extended time led to some reflections about churches, and bodies. Designated…
Our TOBET staff just came home from a presentation to school teachers in a vibrant, faithful Catholic diocese. They were very impressed with the reverent behavior of those who received the Eucharist at Mass. They were even more impressed with those who went up to the altar, made a deep bow of homage to the…
No one would argue, it’s been the season for natural disasters. Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Katia struck like balls in a batting cage, wham, wham, wham. In the middle of that ferocious fortnight, Mexico suffered a gigantic earthquake. (For perspective, the San Francisco quake that struck during Game 3 of the 1989 World Series, termed…
In the middle of the devastating news coming from south Texas this week, there’s strangely been an undercurrent of goodness. An entire city virtually disappeared under water, but on the news we see nobility on a grand scale. It’s not the usual parade of human beings at their worst. Ever since Harvey made first landfall,…
At TOBET, one of the most frequent and desperate pleas for help that we hear concerns pornography. It’s snagging our young men, beginning around age 8 (and even some girls and women are being pulled in). If your son or grandson has a smartphone or tablet (without filtering software), be assured, he is seeing these…
TOBET got a jolt of theological caffeine over the July 4th weekend! That is, we were invited to participate in the Convocation of Catholic Leaders in Orlando, sponsored by the USCCB and totally exceeding all our expectations. This event didn’t appear on CNN or 60 Minutes, but it was BIG. Whenever the whole conference of…
