Every time my inner paranoid thinks it can take a little break, something like this comes along: New York State Assemblyman Richard Brodsky nearly lost his daughter, Willie, at 4 years old when she needed a kidney transplant, and again 10 years later when her second kidney failed. “We have 10,000 New Yorkers on the … Read more
During the height of the sex-abuse scandal, how many parents wished they had the ear of their bishops — to express their frustration, to demand reform? One Belleville, IL, man did: David Spotanski was the chancellor to Bishop Wilton Gregory while the bishop was president of the USCCB, and a ten-page memo that he wrote … Read more
Yesterday concluded a three-day media communications conference at Santa Croce in Rome. Wall Street Journal reporter Stacey Meichtry has a mostly fair assessment of the challenge the Church faces in responding to the crisis. Meichtry makes some important points — namely, that the church’s response to the crisis is bound to be decentralized. Bishops cannot … Read more
I loved Pope John Paul II. In fact, I’m not sure I’d be Catholic today without his writing, example, and leadership. No matter how his papacy is measured in the long run, to me he reigns supreme as a man who combined personal holiness with brilliance. While his administrative failures related to the sex abuse … Read more
At Catholic Advocate, I argue the White House and the Congress are empowering Catholic dissidents, and, as a result, the Church is paying the price. For those who say we must wait for the Church to exert its influence over politics, I say the Church in presently too weak. The vectors of influence can … Read more
The Mind of God is not an open book to us — the finite cannot comprehend the infinite — yet I have noticed that people (including this correspondent) sometimes speak as if it were. Having thoughtlessly omitted from our intentions the rather crucial “nevertheless, according to Thy will,” we presume to know precisely what God … Read more
At Catholic Advocate, I argue the White House and the Congress are empowering Catholic dissidents, and, as a result, the Church is paying the price. For those who say we must wait for the Church to exert its influence over politics, I say the Church in presently too weak. The vectors of influence can … Read more
At Catholic Advocate, I argue the White House and the Congress are empowering Catholic dissidents, and, as a result, the Church is paying the price. For those who say we must wait for the Church to exert its influence over politics, I say the Church in presently too weak. The vectors of influence can … Read more
For the last several years, I have been nearly endlessly fascinated by the film industry’s attempts to duplicate the astonishing success of Pixar’s animated offerings. In fact, so obsessed have I become that I used a significant portion of my “Predictions for 2010” entry to discuss the remote change that someone might finally topple the 800lb gorilla … Read more
Like many tradition-loving Catholics, I feel terrible for Darío Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos — now the second-most hated cardinal in the Church, after Bernard Cardinal Law. As John Allen observed, Cardinal Castrillón once “was widely considered a serious contender to become the first Latin American pope.” Today, he “has achieved global infamy in light of a … Read more
Fox News reported yesterday that a group of explorers claim to have found the remains of Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat in Turkey. The explorers are Chinese and Turkish evangelicals from a research team of Noah’s Ark Ministries: The group claims that carbon dating proves the relics are 4,800 years old, meaning they date to … Read more
Bishop Slattery of Oklahoma was the principal celebrant of a pontifical mass at the national basilica in Washington, D.C., over the weekend, in honor of Benedict’s fifth anniversary as pope. His homily on suffering from that mass has been making the rounds; if you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, take a minute … Read more
I can think of few 20th century classical performers as well-documented (or as deserving of documentation) as the mad Canadian keyboard genius, Glenn Gould. This YouTube clip from his earlier days demonstrates much of what made him fascinating to countless classical music lovers: the incessant humming punctuated by occasional bellowing, the absurd posture, the uncanny ability to stop-and-start at … Read more
I can think of few 20th century classical performers as well-documented (or as deserving of documentation) as the mad Canadian keyboard genius, Glenn Gould. This YouTube clip from his earlier days demonstrates much of what made him fascinating to countless classical music lovers: the incessant humming punctuated by occasional bellowing, the absurd posture, the uncanny ability to stop-and-start at … Read more
Inevitably, writing for a blog called “The American Catholic“ will force you to think long and hard about the relationship between Catholic and American ideals. When I began blogging there a year ago, I held to certain prejudices found among Catholic traditionalists and progressives alike — prejudices that amounted to what I would describe as … Read more
I can think of few 20th century classical performers as well-documented (or as deserving of documentation) as the mad Canadian keyboard genius, Glenn Gould. This YouTube clip from his earlier days demonstrates much of what made him fascinating to countless classical music lovers: the incessant humming punctuated by occasional bellowing, the absurd posture, the uncanny ability to stop-and-start at … Read more
The door closed, and I crumbled. It was Christmas, and I was alone. I had never been alone on Christmas. Having been raised in a family of six children, I was always surrounded by siblings, wrapping paper, and Ping-Pong table-size dinners. When I married at 19, I moved into a larger family network sometimes requiring … Read more
A New York Times story today sheds more positive light on Benedict’s track record against abuse than we’ve seen in that paper of late. The article describes how then-Cardinal Ratzinger attempts to investigate abuse allegations made against an Austrian cardinal were often stymied by political factors inside the Vatican: In 1995, a victim came forward, … Read more
Is there another shoe yet to drop in the Church sex abuse scandal? Mary Ormsby of the Toronto Star thinks so, and suggests the next group of victims to come forward may be heavily female. That would reverse the findings of the John Jay study, which concluded that over 80 percent of the victims were … Read more
Jesus was a Jew. This does not seem like a news flash until we turn away from observing the obvious and begin to talk about Christian discussions of soteriology. If you aren’t familiar with that three-dollar word, it basically has to do with that branch of Christian theology concerned with answering the question, “What … Read more