My first meeting with the bishop of Phoenix is at his home rectory of Sts. Simon and Jude. He’s halfway through Tuesday morning prayer with three other priests when I enter the small, unadorned room. Before I can register that there are only four seats, Bishop Thomas Olmsted kneels on the hard floor and motions … Read more
Over at Get Religion, Mollie Ziegler points out this Pew Forum study on the media coverage of the recent wave of clergy sex abuse allegations — the most scrutiny the Church has received since the story first broke in 2002. From mid-March (when the pope’s role in a decades-old abuse case in Germany came under … Read more
Chicago’s Francis Cardinal George says that in the healthcare debate, Sister Carol Keehan, President of the Catholic Health Association (CHA), chose the president over the bishops: During the bishops’ executive session held Tuesday morning to address the fallout of CHA’s support for the health care legislation despite the bishop’s opposition, Cardinal George recounted the events … Read more
It was on the feast of Christ the King. I remember it because it was a particularly gorgeous day in Buenos Aires, and we seminarians had been given the afternoon off in order to tour the city. We went to the renowned Church of Our Lady of Pilar, though I was not as impressed with … Read more
This should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever watched 22 men in short-shorts and knee socks kick a patterned ball around a grassy field: Soccer is officially out of the closet. This was a brave step for soccer to take, so I hope we can all be supportive. [Hat tip: Skojec]
Living through the postconciliar crisis in the Church, I’ve often felt I could empathize a little with those who endured the Reformation. This came home to me most vividly in 1986, when I attended my first academic conference in Maryland, on Christianity and Literature. The people from the host institution, Washington Bible College, were friendly … Read more
The July/August issue of The Atlantic has a provocative lead article entitled “The End of Men,” by Hanna Rosin. Bound to raise some hackles, it’s a well-written, fascinating, worrisome piece that looks at women’s growing dominance in the West and considers whether the modern, post-industrial world is actually more suited to the female: Man has … Read more
Via the Anchoress comes the story of an Australian man who patrols the cliff across the street from his home, hoping to coax potential jumpers away from the edge: In those bleak moments when the lost souls stood atop the cliff, wondering whether to jump, the sound of the wind and the waves was broken … Read more
Over the past six years, people — particularly other moms — have asked me how I’ve handled being a military mom. Most of the time, I just chuckle. I don’t feel like I’ve handled it at all. Basically, I’ve let our Blessed Mother handle it for me, and I merely go along for the ride. … Read more
I’ve never read more than 50 pages of Redwall. My wife, I think, got to page 100. I know a lot of Christian and Catholic families love the series, but I’ve never heard them explain why. Personally, I didn’t like the fact that the animals were essentially monks-without-a-God (so far as I could tell). My … Read more
Carl Theodor Dreyer, the Danish director responsible for creating Almost-Certainly-The-Greatest-Silent-Film-Of-All-Time, has finally received our technocratic society’s greatest honor: his very own website. Welcome to the Carl Theodor Dreyer website, an expansive initiative of the DFI, making transparent and accessible the unique Carl Theodor Dreyer Collection. The aim of this site is to disseminate knowledge about … Read more
Well, the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance certainly thinks so, having recently released their Agenda for 2010. Among their priorities for the city of Washington, D.C., are maintaining gay marriage, increasing rights for the transgendered, decreasing bullying (finally, one I agree with!), protecting “red light” (strip club) districts, and legalizing prostitution. …other people’s personal choices … Read more
A new study has been released by the Commission on Parenthood’s Future, showing that young adults conceived by sperm donors generally fair more poorly than adopted children or those raised by their biological parents. The authors — which include Professor Norval Glenn of the University of Texas at Austin — surveyed more than 1 million … Read more
Granting all the wonderful, important things modern scriptural scholarship has given us, it bears within it something dreadfully wrong. If you have had the misfortune of coming into earshot of all too many of our contemporary scriptural scholars, they will assure you that scholarship, properly speaking, must strip both the Old and New Testaments of … Read more
I had no idea this day even existed. I had to find out on the Facebook page of a 20-year old friend of mine. Today — June 15, 2010 — is the second annual National Man Day. Started by three brothers as a Facebook page, the idea has caught on with men across the country. … Read more
If you’re at all familiar with alternative medicine, you’ve heard of homeopathy. The system was first developed in the late 18th century, and served — at least for a time — as a chief competitor to what is now mainstream Western medicine. Unfortunately for proponents of the system — and I’m married to one — … Read more
On Drudge this morning: Bronx students forced to clean toilets as a punishment. “After school the principal came in with the inspector lady and she was like ‘Oh, everyone has to pitch in and clean the toilets and stuff.’ So we was cleaning them and we had to clean around them and nasty, it was … Read more
“The body,” I was taught growing up, “is just the shoe box for the soul. What matters is the shoes, not the box. So when it’s time to go to heaven, just put the shoes on and throw the box away.” This good solid dose of Gnostic thinking was drilled into me since … Read more
The image on the right, courtesy of Futility Closet, is one of the most unique images one could possibly find from the score to Chopin’s Étude No. 5, Op. 10, perhaps best known as the “Black Key Étude.” Why unique, you ask? Well, as FC points out in the original post, “the red F is noteworthy because … Read more
St. Thomas More said that to be a Christian, we must not only believe the Resurrection, we must continually be surprised by it. That saint, surprised daily by the empty tomb, saw what happens when people are not even surprised by God. The reinvented government that sentenced More to death was, from various angles, a … Read more