Good news yesterday in the fight against embryonic stem cell experimentation: U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth issued a preliminary injunction that prohibits the National Institutes of Health from funding the research under the administration’s new guidelines, citing an appeals court’s ruling that the researchers who had challenged the less-restrictive policy have the legal standing … Read more
The other day, I was reading an article on a so-called treatment for infant girls supposedly “threatened” by allegedly “malformed” genitalia due to a rare hormone “disorder.” This heterosexually privileged narrative, which hitherto has imperialistically “treated” these children in utero and allowed them to be born with “normal” female genitalia, is now being challenged by … Read more
Normally, I would not question the wisdom of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, especially when backed by the general disposition of the Church and specific, solid papal bulls. I do not doubt that the founders of the universities at Bologna, Paris, Oxford, Salamanca, and so forth meant well. But in light of the experience of … Read more
You may have seen the cute story in the news today about the three-year-old who walked to the fire station to get help when her dad collapsed at home, saving her father’s life. Over at the Agitator, Radley Balko links to another article that, while a year old now, raises an evergreen question about teaching … Read more
If you live in Philadelphia and operate a blog, your city government wants to charge you $300 for the privilege. For the past three years, Marilyn Bess has operated MS Philly Organic, a small, low-traffic blog that features occasional posts about green living, out of her Manayunk home. Between her blog and infrequent contributions to … Read more
According to a new study by the University of Copenhagen, people with blue eyes most likely share a common ancestor who lived 6,000 to 10,000 years ago: “Originally, we all had brown eyes,” Professor Hans Eiberg of the University of Copenhagen said in a press release. “But a genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene in … Read more
The Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), the anti-poverty program run by the USCCB, came under fire this past year for funding groups who were explicitly supporting abortion, contraception, and same-sex marriage. After its internal investigation, the CCHD claimed there were problems with only five groups out of the 51 listed as problematic by the … Read more
When I was at school, my friends had sensible names, names rooted in the land, names their grandparents bore. Names like Charles, Guy, and Ian (which my French friends pronounced “Eye-an”). The girls were called Portia, Sophie, and Honor. Names meant something then. Names always mean something. That’s why we gave up on regular names. … Read more
All ten of us were in the van when it happened. Though we were only running some errands and stopping at the library, I had ignored the eye-rolling of my older kids and insisted on the entire family’s going out together. One consequence of our growing-up family, I have found, is that we more and … Read more
Even in Texas, they’re building them smaller these days. The era of the McMansion is ending, and I can’t say I’m disappointed. Whether you call them McMansions, Starter Castles, or Faux Chateaus, these 3,000 plus square foot homes — which were often cheaply built on tiny plots of land — were in high demand across … Read more
It’s Friday! Just a few quick links this morning: Why are so many people in their 20s taking so long to grow up? One professor is pushing to have the 20s recognized “as a distinct life stage, which he calls ’emerging adulthood.’” Yet another treatment developed using adult stem cells — this time to rebuild … Read more
I arrive at the mission, having driven past the casino and its glittering billboard, stucco and neon mixing garishly among the saguaro. I’ve come to take pictures of this beautiful but challenging monument, indulging my photographic interest in a place rich in Catholic tradition that I have somehow never heard of before coming to this … Read more
Despite this week’s high profile political front-runners, I’m going to have to hand the “Most Creative Use Of Bears In Recent Memory” award over to this story’s Canadians “farmers:” Police said Wednesday they were astonished to find at least 14 wild black bears guarding an illegal marijuana growing operation after a recent raid on the property in … Read more
In my 15 years with Crisis Magazine, the Morley Institute, and now InsideCatholic, the conversation that most often reoccurs is the one about the fate of the Catholic university and college. It begins inevitably with alumni complaining about the latest anti-Catholic outbreak on the hallowed grounds of their former college campus and ends with their … Read more
Interesting findings from a Reuters review of 255 health-care systems in the United States: Catholic and other church-owned systems are significantly more likely to provide higher quality performance and efficiency to the communities served than investor-owned systems. . . . Catholic health systems are also significantly more likely to provide higher quality performance to the … Read more
Unless you see a practicing Catholic ObGyn, 35 is the magic age… the one you start getting one of two questions every time you visit: what you’re doing to prevent more pregnancies (because you have two kids already so you better start acting mature and stop all that baby-making nonsense!) or what you’re doing to … Read more
When two mouthpieces of the feisty right come to verbal blows, you know it’s going to be entertaining. Yesterday, Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily announced that his popular site is cancelling Ann Coulter’s appearance at their “Taking America Back National Conference” in September, because of her decision to speak before a prominent gay conservative organization. “Ultimately, as … Read more
This morning, I received an email from Jim Franklin of the Boston Catholic Insider blogging team reporting that the Archdiocese of Boston has blocked access to their web site from the Archdiocesan office in Braintree, MA. Since we at InsideCatholic.com are ardent believers in both the freedom of the press and the basic right of … Read more
Europe is dying. The Washington Post, among others, reports that, within a hundred years, there will be the rare German in Germany or Italian in Italy. Some demographers believe it is too late to correct Europe’s plunge into extinction. “The fall in the population can no longer be stopped,” reported Walter Rademacher of the German … Read more
The last several days have brought a number of troubling technological stories floating our way, from the unsurprising consequences of earbuds on youngsters and “constant displays ” on adults to Foxconn Technologies’ recent struggles with worker suicides to the rapidly-expanding number of tech-themed entries on the Beloit College Mindset List, technology and its inexorable progress seems to be … Read more