In October 2001, crisis Magazine published an article, titled “The High Price of Priestly Pederasty,” by Dan Michalski. Reporting on publicly known cases of sex abuse by priests, Michalski summarized his findings: So far, more than 3,000 Catholic priests in America have been accused of sexual misconduct with minors, and nearly 2,000 insurance claims have … Read more
Technical difficulties being over, I now present the next installment of the 1962 serial Uncle Harry’s Monkey’s Uncle, by Frank Borth. As always, these pages come from Catholic University’s online archive of Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact. I love the fantasy wish-fulfillment here. I mean, how many kids wouldn’t love to get … Read more
It’s refreshing to remember, from time to time, how grateful I am to live in this day and age. Even while biotech labs routinely turn out fresh horrors, the very DNA of our food is casually tortured into an unrecognizable state, and Nancy Pelosi keeps several female Senate pages in a state of suspended animation in her basement, hooked up to … Read more
Postmodern man — and postmodern woman — don’t know how to give a good party. It’s up to Catholics to reclaim this lost art and share it with the world. Why? Because good parties are intrinsic to our Catholic faith. The liturgical year is punctuated with a wide array of feast days and celebrations, many … Read more
I collect illuminating tidbits from Modernity and offer them to discriminating readers from time to time. Herewith are the most recent for your delectation. A Parade magazine poll on spirituality reported that “69% of Americans believe in God,” and that “77% pray outside of religious services.” While the article invites us to find encouragement … Read more
The grocery chain Whole Foods has launched a campaign called “Let’s Retake Our Plates.” On their Web site, visitors can trace where their food (purchased at Whole Foods, of course) comes from, as well as take regular polls to qualify for discounts at the store. The most interesting part of the campaign is the film … Read more
Good Friday morning! A few links to get the day rolling: A Rasmussen poll this week shows President Obama neck and neck in a hypothetical 2012 match-up against…Ron Paul? If it sounds too good to be true, it is, says Nate Silver, whose own number crunching shows no Republican doing better against Obama than an … Read more
A Cracking of the Heart David Horowitz, Regnery, 188 pages, $24.95 David Horowitz remembers the moment well. The author of Radical Son, fresh off his political conversion, was having dinner with his family one night, explaining why he had become a conservative — and why they should, too. At that point, he admits, he … Read more
Over on her blog, the Anchoress highlighted Pope Benedicts’s spontaneous remarks from Mass today, where he spoke about the need for penance and the reality of eternal life. (She quoted excerpts carried by Whispers in the Loggia; the full text has not yet been translated and released.) We’ll see what the press does with the … Read more
To rebuild the trust of U.S. Catholics in the Church and its leaders and to make reparations to the victims left in the wake of this scandal, the bishops need to address several points: 1. The bishops should make clear that this is a crisis and that they are not conducting business as usual. Powerful … Read more
Oh goody. A new book has been released about the Really Real Jesus, written by Paul Verhoeven, director of such classics as Showgirls, Starship Troopers, and Robocop. Naturally, it is a scholarly work, and will serve as a springboard for a movie version — directed by Paul Verhoeven: In an interview with MTV, the Dutch … Read more
According to Kenneth Vogel at Politico, the fundraising powerhouse Tea Party Express may actually be a front for a Republican PAC. While others have said as much, the point was reinforced when Politico obtained an internal proposal from GOP media firm Russo Marsh & Rogers — the operation behind the “Express” — that appears to … Read more
On Good Friday, I received this e-mail from a reader in France: Your article about the shroud of Turin makes me almost hysteric, I was almost dying of laughter. Thank you for this high piece of burlesque. Nowadays, everyone and his dog knows that the shroud was created in 1347, simply in applying the shroud … Read more
On April 14, 1906, some clever San Franciscan strapped a movie camera to the front platform of a cable car, and recorded the vehicle’s slow climb up Market Street. The footage is remarkable — one commenter wrote that watching the film is like looking through the window of a time machine. But it’s even more … Read more
Maybe I have a sick sense of humor, but I got a laugh out of this one: According to the UK’s Telegraph, a desperate man in Sweden called a suicide crisis hotline to get some help. The Lutheran priest on the other end fell asleep and began snoring while the poor guy was talking. Happily, … Read more
I was inclined to be kindly disposed toward the incoming archbishop of Los Angeles. Archbishop Jose Gomez faces a thankless task, taking over a church that has just suffered a major persecution — one conducted by his predecessor in office. Whatever the legal cloud following him up from Texas, Archbishop Gomez was formed for the … Read more
I recently stumbled across a most interesting piece from a website called PopMatters that occasionally happens across my radar. The article, entitled “Mental Machine Music: The Musical Mind in the Digital Age,” is a bit long, but the questions is raises have been haunting me for some time now: I want to discern how, precisely, … Read more
to find that, when otters paint, they paint like otters: Kind of reminds me of homeschool. Everything reminds me of homeschool.
This is a neat story: The remains of a soldier killed at Pearl Harbor are finally going home after having been unidentifiable for 68 years. The family was able to help experts positively identify the body by providing a DNA sample for comparison . . . from the letters he had mailed home to his … Read more
The nation of Poland is still in shock over the plane crash that killed 97 people, including President Lech Kaczynski, first lady Maria Kaczynska, the national bank president, the deputy foreign minister, the head of the National Security Office, the deputy Parliament speaker, the Olympic Committee head, two presidential aides, several priests, and 17 … Read more