Anne Hendershott alerted me to the post at National Review Online about the funding George Soros provides to Jim Wallis and his organization/magazine called Sojourners. Wallis is the de facto leader of the Religious Left coalition that does everything it can to aid the Democratic Party. Any pretense of Wallis to non-partisanship was completely blown … Read more
As summer lurches to an end, the hallucinatory carnival that is America continues to spin like a carousel set to “liquefy”: Pro-terrorist Muslims plan an end-zone dance at NYC’s Ground Zero in the form of a towering victory mosque — while the city blocks rebuilding of a Greek Orthodox church crushed by the falling Towers … Read more
I’m reading a book I’d recommend to all parents: Hold On To Your Kids: Why Parents Need To Matter More Than Peers, by child development expert Dr. Gordon Neufeld and physician Dr. Gabor Mate. The authors’ views fly in the face of many modern parenting books that focus on behavioral changes and skill-building. Neufeld and … Read more
Pakistan is suffering from its worst flooding in decades, leaving 1,500 dead and displacing many millions more. The UN says that the number of people suffering from the ongoing rains could top the the 2004 tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, and the earthquake in Haiti combined: They estimate that 13 million Pakistanis have been displaced … Read more
Survival is the least of my desires. –Dorothy Allison It’s that time of year again: Sultry heat punctuated by thunderstorms, back-to-school charity drives at church . . . and the publication of endless “college survival guides” for incoming freshmen. At first glance, this clichéd phrase might seem a bit overstated. College isn’t exactly the ascent … Read more
Mike Garside didn’t know what he was getting into. Easing his BMW off the busy main road connecting the boom towns of Reading and Newbury in southeast England, he felt he might be wasting the weekend. He could be spending the time at work or with his family. But here he was, on his way … Read more
Despite my best intentions, I’ve been more absent from posting than I’d hoped. I did spend about a week in the gorgeous mountains of North Carolina, photographing my little sister’s wedding. And of course, things are always busy around the house with the kids. But more than anything, I’ve been looking for work. Yes, that’s … Read more
For fallen-away Catholics, finding your way back to the Church can be hard; for those who have suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a priest, it can be impossible — all of which makes James O’Bryan’s story all the more incredible. O’Bryan was part of a lawsuit brought against the Vatican in 2004, alleging … Read more
Did you start your morning with a little high fructose corn syrup? If not, better hurry because soon you may need to settle for that old fashioned substance called cane sugar. Sarah Gilbert has a piece in Daily Finance about the latest in the battle over high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). For a long time, manufacturers … Read more
Exactly a year ago today, our oldest son, Luke, and his wife, Tasha, presented to the world the inimitable Lucy Beatrice Shea. (In fairness, Luke couldn’t have done it without Tasha. And, in hasty self-defense, I add that Tasha is a really good sport who enjoys a good laugh about labor and won’t, I am … Read more
Over the past few months, my MLB Nighttime Viewing Program of Choice has slowly migrated from ESPN’s “Baseball Tonight” (my favorite sports segment for many, many years) to the upstart MLB Network’s “MLB Tonight.” Part of this migratory process is directly attributable to the “live-look-ins” and significantly greater amounts of “live baseball” MLB Tonight includes … Read more
If the Third Reich did not style itself after the Babe of Bethlehem, Dr. Goebbels proposed some fugitive cheer in a radio broadcast on Christmas Day by changing the subject of the feast. He hailed the Japanese for being free of the remnants of Christianity that he regretted in his Fatherland: It is our national misfortune … Read more
On Friday, the FDA approved a new emergency contraceptive called “ella,” which can prevent pregnancy up to 5 days after sex. It passed with little fanfare or resistance, compared to the uproar surrounding the approval of Plan B, also known as the “morning after” pill (which is effective up to three days at most). The … Read more
Family & Life, an independent pro-life organization in Ireland, reports on the latest medical innovation involving the use of adult stem cells: a boy in Northern Ireland became the first child to undergo a successful trachea transplant. The 11-year-old underwent the operation which involved the removal of his trachea and its replacement with a donor … Read more
Let’s start the week with something inspiring. CNN World ran a piece last week about a Scotsman who went for a beer at a local pub and came out with an idea that would change thousands of lives around the world. In 1992, Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow and his brother saw a news report about Bosnian refugees. … Read more
Too often, Catholic commentators, including myself, speak about American bishops in the plural. The existence of a national bishops’ conference unfortunately encourages this habit, one that obscures a basic fact about the Catholic Church: It is individual bishops who are responsible for sanctifying the lives of the Catholic faithful. There’s no better antidote to the … Read more
What happened to Islamic civilization? How did we get from Avicenna and Cordoba to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda? In his new book, The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis, Robert R. Reilly traces the problem back to a thousand-year-old theological debate over reason and the nature of … Read more
I sometimes think that Russia just sits around thinking, “Is there any way we can be just a little more grim today?” According to NPR’s Morning Edition, a subway mural project is stirring up some controversy: The Dostoevskaya station — which opened this summer in memory of Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky — met a fair … Read more
I missed this June article by Fr. James Martin, SJ, about how our spiritual lives are affected by the digital age. (The piece in The Huffington Post was adapted from his new book, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything.) Other articles like this one have come out detailing the ways electronic media is changing how … Read more
Christianity is called the “Good News” because it brings hope — the hope of both forgiveness and everlasting life. That matters because we are fallen creatures, prone to sin and death. The New Testament warns of that false comfort zone where we say, “Peace and security,” for that is when Christ will come, like a … Read more