The year 2011 was born with the mark of Cain. Last week, Salman Taseer, the governor of Pakistan‘s largest state, Punjab, was gunned down by his own bodyguard, as the rest of his handpicked guards looked on. His killer, a Muslim fanatic, was greeted with showers of rose petals thrown by lawyers, and the victim’s … Read more
Halfway through this Wall Street Journal article, I thought the author, Amy Chua, might be writing tongue-in-cheek. But the Yale Law professor and author isn’t joking. Titled “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior,” Chua compares the parenting styles of what she loosely calls “Chinese” mothers with that of “Western” mothers, arguing that the former produces the … Read more
Some discouraging news: After more than 20 years of a slow but steady decline in both the rate and number of abortions performed in the U.S., the Guttmacher Institute is reporting a slight increase in its latest survey. The increase was just 1%, to 19.6 abortions per 1,000 women of child-bearing age in 2008, from … Read more
Back in the 1980s, I was involved with a group that produced a booklet looking at the future of the Church in Britain. We were assured — and repeated, without really thinking about it very deeply — that the downward trend of baptisms, confirmations, marriages, and ordinations to the priesthood meant that there would be … Read more
On Sunday, as he baptized 21 infants in the Sistine Chapel, Pope Benedict XVI encouraged parents to give their children Christian names. He said this was “an unequivocal sign that the Holy Spirit gives a rebirth to people in the womb of the Church.” The Italian media then warned parents about not using names from … Read more
Years ago, when Russell Kirk wrote The Conservative Mind, he defined the towering problem of our time as “the problem of community lost and community regained.” It is natural that we crave community, which is the union we have with others through common affection and spiritual and practical interest. To desire community, especially the primary … Read more
In today’s Los Angeles Times, Skeptic editor Michael Shermer brings some sanity to coverage of both the shootings in Tuscon and the well-reported fish and bird deaths around the country: We live in a causal universe, so all effects do have causes, but before we turn to grand, overarching causal theories such as political rhetoric or … Read more
Pope Benedict addressed a gathering of diplomats to the Holy See yesterday, urging them to encourage religious freedom in their home countries: The Pope asked the representatives of 178 countries, as well as of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, the European Community and the Knights of Malta, to examine how well their own countries respected the … Read more
I was pretty swamped this past week, so I missed Joseph Susanka’s Patheos column on Yojiro Takita’s Oscar-winning 2008 film, Departures. If you haven’t seen the movie, Joseph’s column will make you regret your sad mistake. It tells the story of young Daigo Kobayashi, an aspiring concert cellist, who finds himself forced to return to … Read more
Some time back, a reader wrote me with an interesting observation: You know, I just thought of something. I used to have a part-time job as a pest caller (phone surveys, mostly) and so I met a lot of Wiccans. (In the 90’s they congregated in phone & restaurant work, for some reason; don’t know … Read more
The oft-cited phrase “knowledge is power” seems to be from Francis Bacon. One might turn the phrase around — “power is knowledge” — but that does not seem so obvious to us. Nor, if we think about it, is the original quite as innocent as it sounds: The most dangerous thing that can happen to … Read more
The shooting in Tucson over the weekend that has left six people dead, including a small child, and several others fighting for their lives is the kind of thing that can make you lose faith in humanity. Almost as discouraging has been the rush in some quarters to assign blame to various political groups for … Read more
A government study shows that fluoride levels in water and common dental hygiene products are too high. Two out of five adolescents have tooth streaking or spottiness due to excessive fluoride, and in some cases teeth can become pitted. One study mentioned in the Los Angeles Times found that prolonged exposure to fluoride “can increase … Read more
In my column last week, I asked the question, “Does the USCCB understand subsidiarity?” I received a variety of responses to that piece, the most interesting being from Msgr. Charles Pope, pastor of Holy Comforter-St. Cyprian, who posted his thoughts on the website of the Archdiocese of Washington. Writing in a judicious and even-handed way … Read more
My kids really love the full-color Manga Messiah series. There’s the original book; about the life of Jesus; Manga Metamorphosis (about Acts of the Apostles); Manga Mutiny (about Genesis and Exodus); and Manga Melech (from Joshua to King David). They’re all on Amazon.com for about $10 each. My kids read and re-read these to the … Read more
There’s been a bit of a dust-up over the “silence” of the USCCB on the repeal of the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy for the U.S. armed forces. Cardinal Wuerl’s comment, however, was right on the mark, in my opinion. Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, DC stated last month on Fox News Sunday that “there … Read more
Ecstatic dancers whirl around a woodland bonfire. Spells are cast in suburban living rooms. A pentagram-wearing priestess wanders through an interfaith festival. Today, witches can be as near as next door — and in the public square as well. Wicca is a conspicuous part of a burgeoning pagan revival in the Western world. Although hard … Read more
My husband and I were recently inspired to pack ourselves, our eight kids, and 13,000 Capri Sun juice boxes into our twelve-passenger van and drive more than 1,500 miles to spend Christmas in south Florida. It was epic — if by epic you mean a wildly memorable trip that was “so perfectly worth doing” but also … Read more
CBS reports that almost 40 percent of pregnancies in New York City ended in abortion in 2009, according to the city’s health department. Out of 225,667 recorded pregnancies there were 126,774 live births and 87,273 abortions. Archbishop Timothy Dolan joined with other religious leaders yesterday calling for efforts to make abortions “rare:” “I re-affirm Cardinal … Read more
Now this is encouraging: Egypt’s majority Muslim population stuck to its word Thursday night. What had a been a promise of solidarity to the weary Coptic community, was honoured, when thousands of Muslims showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held outside. From the … Read more