After much deliberation I got Chippy an inexpensive phone from AT&T (20$ after rebate). Since he is now walking home from school a sizable distance, I wanted it for safety. With the AT&T phone I purchased the Smart Limits program (5$ per month) that gives parents the ability to limit texting, downloading, etc. However, I … Read more
Wow, is it the power of mythology or the power of demonization? It’s hard to tell the difference, and perhaps there is no difference, perhaps demonization is the mythology that drives the Catholic Left. Why can’t I stop laughing? Because I just read this in NCR (the Reporter, not the Register) in response to the … Read more
Last week at the National Catholic Reporter, John Allen Jr. took aim at the “religious illiteracy” that still reigns among his fellow journalists (h/t Get Religion): On Tuesday a piece in the U.K.-based Telegraph carried the following headline: “Muslims will become majority in Europe, senior Vatican official warns.” An alarmist subhead added: “European Christians must have more … Read more
Nothing is more deadly to discourse than Johnny One Note launching another pitch for his particular crusade. I risk sounding a familiar theme only because I just witnessed powerful evidence favoring its cause. I refer to an overwhelming, positive reaction shown by a congregation to a Gregorian chant Mass, given at Saturday five p.m., the … Read more
If you’ve played action-oriented videogames to any significant degree in the past, this new study will confirm what you already know. Playing shoot-‘em-up, action-packed videogames strengthens a person’s ability to translate sensory information quickly into accurate decisions. This effect applies to both sexes, say psychologist Daphne Bavelier of the University of Rochester in New York … Read more
Here are some recent scenes from American Christianity waiting on the rich and powerful in the hope of catching some table scraps. You got your Christian representatives of the Thing that Used to Be Liberalism in bed with millionaires bent on “tailoring the message” to the needs of pro-abortion zealots: Correcting his initial comments denying … Read more
In response to a certain missive making the rounds in reference to ladies’ fashion — and, more specifically, why dresses and skirts should be the norm for Catholic women — Simcha Fisher has one word: pants. A few selections from her Pantifesto: 1. I live in NH, where winter happens. Pants. 4. Motherhood is a … Read more
This was as predictable as the sunrise: At least 13 protesters died Monday when Indian police clashed with tens of thousands of Kashmiris who took to the streets and torched a Christian missionary school in demonstrations fueled by reports of Quran burnings in the United States…. Agence France-Presse reports that the protests began after video … Read more
On Thursday, May 1, 1783, with “the young Mr. (Edmund) Burke” present, Samuel Johnson remarked: “It is strange that there should be so little reading in the world and so much writing. People in general do not willingly read if they can have anything else to amuse them.” The word “reading” here does not mean, … Read more
Camille Paglia had an article in The Sunday Times yesterday (subscription required) about pop icon Lady Gaga and — to put it mildly — Paglia is not a fan. She calls the singer the first major star of the digital age, but believes she’s a charlatan, a “manufactured personality,” and unsexy. Furthermore, despite showing acres of … Read more
Recently my daughter Jessica and I spent some time traveling in Sweden, in the upcountry north of Uppsala. We don’t care for cities, and my daughter, no surprise here, is something of a traditionalist, so we visited old villages, well-preserved “gamlasgardar” or collocations of log cabins, barns, threshing floors, and so forth, and village churches. … Read more
UPDATED 9/13 Rev. David J. Mullen is pastor of Saint Brendan’s Parish in Bellingham, MA, but perhaps not for long. Father Mullen told entire parish on the weekend of September 4-5 that he will very likely be removed as pastor and be named parochial vicar because of his refusal to use the Talking About Touching … Read more
(image source) It’s stories like this that make me feel glad I (a) am out of style (b) don’t even generally realize that I’m out of style and (c) don’t read The Wall Street Journal: At model casting calls for New York’s fashion week, which begins today, one of the most coveted attributes is an … Read more
After some technical difficulties associated with the changeover of the site, we’re able to again provide visitors with a story every week from Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact, the classic Catholic comic book distributed to parochial school students on a biweekly basis for three decades. As always, these images come from Catholic University’s online … Read more
Nine years ago today, my 10th graders and I were 10 minutes into an 85-minute 2nd period, doing Oedipus the King, when another teacher walked into the room and whispered into my ear that a plane had just hit the U.S. Senate building (wrong info, of course, but that’s what he said). What to do? … Read more
It is common for Catholic politicians to say that they are personally opposed to abortion, but that they must accept the law and the rights of others to have a choice in the matter. They are, then, personally against but politically in favor of the right to abortion. Although this is a familiar stance, the … Read more
August 26 marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Albanian Gonxha Agnes Bojaxhiu, a diminutive woman whose grand stature became known to the world as Mother Teresa. Over a brief 100 years, this small person became a religious woman; received a “vocation within a vocation” in a “decisive mystical encounter with Christ,” as … Read more
Salon staff writer Tracy Clark-Flory thinks Americans need to be more like the Dutch when it comes to teenage sex. In a recent column, she wrote that Dutch parents can teach their U.S. counterparts about “respect and acceptance of teenage sexuality.” Clark-Flory finds her views supported by a couple of studies, including one from 2003 … Read more
Over the course of the past few days, Fr. Dwight Longnecker has posted several times on the question of so-called “church shopping.” He begins with an examination of the phenomenon in Protestant churches, which, as a result of their constant splits and re-foundations have a real problem on their hands: The only thing that remains, … Read more
A few links to get the day rolling: A federal appeals court is temporarily allowing government funding of embryonic stem cell research while it considers Judge Royce Lamberth’s decision last month that would ban it (saying it violates a Congressional law against funding embryo-destructive research). Is it “silly” to be giving priests the honorary title … Read more