Bishop Robert Vasa, the coadjutor bishop-elect of Santa Rosa, CA, and the episcopal adviser of the Catholic Medical Association since 2002, presided at a White Mass for medical professionals over the weekend. In his homily, using the example of the Miracle at Cana, Bishop Vasa told the congregation that, when the “usual practice of medicine … Read more
Last week, we looked at the basic evidence for the perpetual virginity of Mary: the “why the Church thinks that the record shows, as a matter of historical fact, that she remained a virgin” evidence. But, of course, the question remains, “Why does the Church think this is a big deal?” There are, after all, … Read more
The radical social commentaries of the United States‘ vice-president, Henry Wallace, would lead to a tense exchange with Winston Churchill in May, but Wallace had already stirred controversy with his leftist reduction of international relations, and war itself, to an economic dialectic. As chairman of the Board of Economic Warfare in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s … Read more
A priest who confessed to having sex with a teenage girl in the 1960s has just stepped down from ministry in the Los Angeles archdiocese — and appallingly, that’s still not the most outrageous part of this story: The priest, the Rev. Martin P. O’Loghlen, was once a leader in his religious order and was … Read more
Vagueness. That’s what Clark Whelton calls today’s spoken language in his column in City Journal, published by the Manhattan Institute. Whelton believes a linguistic virus is responsible, though he’s not exactly sure where it came from: I recently watched a television program in which a woman described a baby squirrel that she had found in … Read more
Recently I paid my $1.99 and downloaded the new iPhone app for confession. Seeing the app was subtitled “a Roman Catholic App,” I figured it wasn’t going to suffer from “Catholicism Lite.” (Whether the new app would meet the demanding standard of John Allen’s “Taliban Catholicism,” I was about to find out.) Since its release, … Read more
Here’s #3 of 10 in the 1952 adventure serial “The Treasure of Paradise Island,” written by Capt. Frank Moss and illustrated by Frank Borth. As always, these pages come from Catholic University’s online archive of Treasure Chest. More next week!
The feminist slogan of the sixties, “sisterhood is powerful,” was not in itself a falsehood, but insofar as it led to an eclipse or a denial of the value of motherhood, it created a great deal of confusion and unhappiness for young women. Whereas the late John Paul II saw motherhood as a fulfillment of … Read more
Time Magazine has an interesting article about a theory some futurists hold that artificial intelligence (AI) will change what it means to be human in the very near future. Our species will be transformed into something no longer recognizable, they say, and this idea has a name: “the Singularity.” The difficult thing to keep sight … Read more
So here we are, the day we started referring to “Former president Hosni Mubarak,” and I can’t help feeling, with my 20/20 hindsight, that maybe our own president didn’t play things all so well. Truthfully, I haven’t felt very confident in our foreign policy throughout this entire struggle. I was frankly surprised at the loudly … Read more
Many years ago, my mother compared her life as a mother of nine children to a Merry-Go-Round. She said it felt like she stepped on each morning and spun around and around until the end of the day when she stepped off, slept a little, and got right back on the neext day. Back then, … Read more
BREAKING NEWS: Egypt’s embattled president Hosni Mubarak has stepped down, and Cairo is rejoicing. I wonder what this will mean for Egypt’s Christian population, especially if the Muslim Brotherhood gains in power.
Before we get to this week’s links, I just wanted to thank everyone who donated during this week’s fund drive. Asking for money is not my favorite thing ever — none of us here particularly enjoys it — but we do it because we believe that strongly in what InsideCatholic is about. We have big … Read more
The great Orthodox theologian Sergius Bulgakov writes that the world about us was made for us to exalt, to spiritualize, not because matter is in itself evil, but because the good that it possesses was meant to be united by man with the God whom man serves. That is the meaning of our being … Read more
It can be lonely in the scientific community for a pro-life stem-cell researcher, as Theresa Deisher is discovering. In its latest issue, the scientific journal Nature profiles Deisher’s work — and her role as one of the co-plaintiffs in a case to discontinue federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research. Suffice it to say, her conviction … Read more
On the last page of the final chapter of Democracy in America, Tocqueville summarizes the comparison he has just drawn between the new democracy and the old order as follows: “They are like two distinct humanities.” This is very much the feeling experienced by the partisans as well as the opponents of the modern democratic … Read more
Ave Maria University announced today that Tom Monaghan, AMU’s founder, will be stepping down as CEO, and Jim Towey will be taking over as president of the university: “This is a huge win for Ave Maria University,” [Chairman of the Board of Trustees Michael] Timmis said. “We retain the vision and experience of our pioneers, … Read more
Have you given to InsideCatholic yet this week? If not, don’t make me call you a procrastinator — tomorrow is the last day! (I’m really good at nagging; just ask my husband.) If you need a little reminder, or you happen to be hearing about this for the first time, we’re conducting an InsideCatholic fundraising … Read more
The Catholic Herald has a moving profile of one Coptic laywoman in Cairo who has made it her mission to minister to the people who live in the city’s garbage dumps. There are 60,000-70,000 Zabbaleen, or “garbage people,” in Cairo who survive on what they can scrounge in the dumps — children fighting with rats over … Read more
John Allen, senior correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, routinely uses the phrase “Taliban Catholicism” to describe “an exaggerated allergy to anything that smacks of secularism, liberalization, or corruption by modernity — an angry form of the faith that knows only how to excoriate and condemn.” Allen says it’s become part of the “standard stump … Read more