Sr. Anita Baird is the founder of the Office of Racial Justice at the Archdiocese of Chicago. Sr. Baird was interviewed yesterday by Kathleen Gilbert for LifeSiteNews about the upcoming event honoring Fr. Michael Pfleger, a diocesan priest in Chicago who worked for the Obama campaign. Fr. Pfleger became infamous outside of Chicago for saying publicly … Read more
A historian at the Italian Montevergine monastery says that Adolf Hitler’s interest in religious artifacts apparently extended to the Shroud of Turin: Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler hatched a plot to steal the Shroud of Turin but was thwarted by a handful of plucky Benedictine monks, it was reported today. Hitler dispatched aides to swipe the … Read more
For the last five years, you showed heroic virtue, schlepping around eight kids, a million bags of groceries, half a million bags of garbage, and the occasional panicked cat. You accepted numerous unnamable spills onto your rubber mats without complaint, and didn’t even whimper when thrown up upon. For years at a time, you stored bags marked … Read more
It helps now and then to revisit past events, especially in the financial industry. Some news items are ascribed momentous importance and considered milestones in our financial history, but beyond the immediate emotional response they evoke, they have no real lasting import. Others, however, hold lessons for the future and should be remembered. Here are … Read more
For months now, news outlets have been filled to overflowing with stories of the currently-and-impendingly jobless — not surprising, given the dramatic effect unemployment has on those unfortunate enough to experience it. Still, this has got to be the strangest side-effect I’ve seen yet: In this troubled economy, you may be thinking about beefing up your … Read more
Patrick O’Hannigan over at The American Spectator had an excellent piece yesterday summarizing the various ways the New York Times got its reporting wrong when it published the “Vatican Declined to Defrock U.S. Priest Who Abused Boys” story. He breaks it into four categories. Here’s an excerpt outlining the first two: Issue One: Chronology. If … Read more
…Jose Gomez of San Antonio, TX. He will be announced as LA’s coadjutor bishop at a press conference this morning, meaning he will take control of the archdiocese when Cardinal Mahony reaches retirement age next year. The speculation over this appointment has been heated, and it’s groundbreaking in a number of ways. Whispers in the … Read more
Michael Hirschorn at New York Magazine says that CNN has become the sick man of broadcast journalism. Things have certainly changed since the early days of cable. The rise: It’s easy to forget that CNN was once revolutionary. Founded in 1980, back when the idea of watching a channel other than ABC, NBC, or CBS … Read more
I think the thing that is most repulsive about the current media feeding frenzy on Pope Benedict XVI is the appalling combination of slovenly malice with the sheer self-congratulatory demand that Catholics should be gratefulfor their vendetta against him. You know: “Oh, we make some mistakes now and then, but where would you be without … Read more
I posted this over at my blog at TrueSlant, but it’s so short — what the heck — I’ll submit it for your disappoval here. For decades, the RNC allowed its employees to get a subsidized abortion. For one night, its young donors received an all-expenses-paid visit to a strip-and-bondage club. Guess which sin miscue … Read more
Having Easter and Opening Day this close together definitely falls under the “Embarrassment of Riches” category for me. I’m sitting here amidst a sea of empty plastic eggs and Peep wrappers, watching my beloved Dodgers’ attempts to mount a come-back against the oft-hapless Pittsburgh Pirates. The latest 3-run HR from the Bucs’ catcher makes said … Read more
Sexual abuse is deplorable, no matter where it occurs. But one wonders: Why the near hysteria regarding sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, most of which occurred decades ago, from a society that celebrates the lack of constraints against almost every form of sexual activity, no matter how degraded? Is there any other instance of … Read more
Along with Thirty-two Short Films About Glenn Gould, which I only put into our Netflix queue to see if my husband really loved me, The African Queen has been languishing in the “saved” category for over a year, waiting until the movie should be released on DVD. We finally got to see it last week, … Read more
Along with Thirty-two Short Films About Glenn Gould, which I only put into our Netflix queue to see if my husband really loved me, The African Queen has been languishing in the “saved” category for over a year, waiting until the movie should be released on DVD. We finally got to see it last week, … Read more
Along with Thirty-two Short Films About Glenn Gould, which I only put into our Netflix queue to see if my husband really loved me, The African Queen has been languishing in the “saved” category for over a year, waiting until the movie should be released on DVD. We finally got to see it last week, … Read more
I avoided reading the news over the weekend to better focus on properly celebrating Easter, so I missed this exchange between two archbishops over the abuse scandal in Ireland: Archbishop Williams, the head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, which claims 70 million adherents, was unusually blunt. “I was speaking to an Irish friend recently who … Read more
Last week, hell froze over when America‘s Michael Sean Winters complimented George Weigel’s criticism of the New York Times. Weigel, distinguished senior fellow of Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center, also wrote a defense of Pope Benedict and the Catholic Church in The Philadelphia Inquirer today. Weigel points out that the Church, more than any … Read more
Regular readers may be taken aback by the question, but I ask it seriously. In fact, I am repeating a question put to Francis Cardinal George by a reporter for the Catholic News Service. A March 23 story from CNS, written by Nancy Frazier O’Brien, featured an exchange with Cardinal George, president of the U.S. … Read more
The Easter Antiphon, Regina Coeli, states that Christ “has arisen as He said.” This phrase is remarkable. It is one thing, however astounding, to maintain that Christ arose from the dead. But it is another thing to add that Christ arose just as He said that He would. Lazarus, for instance, did not know that … Read more
“Love Bade Me Welcome” a poem by George Herbert was set to music by Ralph Vaughn Williams as part of his “Five Mystical Songs” (1906-11). Both the poem and the song have the power to convert. The poem had a profound effect on the Jewish philosopher/mystic Simone Weil. The song has, more times than I can recall, … Read more