Nancy Pelosi, delivering an address on May 6 to the Catholic Community Conference, attempting to explain the intersection of her faith and politics: The cognitive dissonance here is overwhelming: To speak so fervently about the Word made Flesh, and yet to remain completely immune to its implications when it comes to her position on abortion… … Read more
This, I think, is a great idea: The Vatican is planning a new initiative to reach out to atheists and agnostics in an attempt to improve the church’s relationship with non-believers. Pope Benedict XVI has ordered officials to create a new foundation where atheists will be encouraged to meet and debate with some of the … Read more
A few links to get the Friday morning rolling: News: Copernicus’s grave and remains are identified, and he is reburied in Frombork Cathedral with honors. Not news: Media accounts breathlessly declare that the Vatican is “rehabilitating” the “heretical” scientist, in “repentance for its treatment of [him] over his theory that the Earth revolves around the … Read more
Via Danielle Bean at Faith & Family Live comes this story about the flip side of “reproductive choice.” Greg Bruell says he had an agreement with his girlfriend that, if she were to become pregnant, she would abort the child — an agreement that she reneged on when she ultimately did become pregnant and decided … Read more
The Jesuit CEO of UCA News says that the Catholic understanding of transbustantiation is no longer tenable in our “post-Newtonian world of quantum physics.” Physicist Stephen Barr begs to differ: [O]ne can explain the doctrine of transubstantiation and distinguish it from other beliefs about the Eucharist without any use of the Aristotelian apparatus. I don’t … Read more
The Cannes Film Festival closed over the weekend, and much of the buzz out of France has been over the Grand Prix winner, Des Hommes et Des Dieux (Of Gods and Men). It recounts the story of a group of French Trappists who were caught in the middle of the Algerian civil war and ultimately … Read more
You have to hand it to the guy — after 100 years, Mark Twain still knows how to grab headlines: Exactly a century after rumours of his death turned out to be entirely accurate, one of Mark Twain’s dying wishes is at last coming true: an extensive, outspoken and revelatory autobiography which he devoted the … Read more
Racism, abortion, blasphemy, sex abuse — today’s Friday morning round-up is a more serious affair: Immediately after winning the Republican primary in Kentucky, Rand Paul got in hot water for his appearance on the Rachel Maddow show, where he questioned the constitutionality of one aspect of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Now he’s clearing … Read more
Last week, I mentioned that a Boston-area Catholic school had declined to re-enroll a boy with lesbian parents, but that the archdiocese was looking to place the student in another Catholic school. On his personal blog yesterday, Cardinal Sean O’Malley defended the archdiocese’s decision: In Boston we are beginning to formulate policies and practices to … Read more
The results of yesterday’s primary elections were almost all good news for the political challenger: Rand Paul, the tea party favorite, walked away with a 24-point lead over the GOP-backed Trey Grayson in Kentucky. Party-swapper Arlen Specter’s 30-year record wasn’t enough to save him this time — even with robo-calls from President Obama on his … Read more
Normally, when seeing author James Carroll write things like, “Celibacy cuts to the heart of what is wrong in the Catholic Church today,” I would roll my eyes and move on. But over at America Magazine, Father Jim Martin isn’t taking the insult lying down. Father Martin first quotes from Carroll’s article: No, celibacy does … Read more
I missed this article in the Washington Post when it appeared last week, but it deserves a mention now. William Wan talks with seminarians graduating from Mount Saint Mary’s this year about studying for the priesthood under the shadow of the sex-abuse scandal: “In the last six years alone, I’ve been fingerprinted four times,” said … Read more
A few links for your Friday morning: News outlets are shocked — shocked! — that Pope Benedict doesn’t approve of gay marriage. Much like the recent Denver case, a boy in Massachussetts was denied re-enrollment in a Catholic school because of his parents’ homosexual relationship. Unlike the recent Denver case, the archdiocese has offered to … Read more
In his New York Times column this week, Ross Douthat examined the thesis of the recently released book Red Families vs. Blue Families, which argues that, with all their emphasis on no sex before marriage, families in Red States are “trying to sustain an outdated social model” that leads to “teen childbirth, shotgun marriages and … Read more
Pope Benedict, on his flight to Portugal yesterday, regarding the sex-abuse scandal (emphasis added): [A]ttacks against the pope or the church don’t come just from outside the church. The suffering of the church also comes from within the church, because sin exists in the church. This too has always been known, but today we see … Read more
The high-fructose corn syrup scare is so passe, Zoe — the new terror lurking in our foods is salt. One New York assemblyman has already taken steps to fight this insidious additive by proposing a ban on the substance in New York restaurants, with a corresponding fine of $1,000 per salty infraction. My favorite curmudgeonly … Read more
Friday is finally here, along with this morning’s link round-up: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke at a conference yesterday where she said she wants Catholics to “play a very major role” in immigration reform. Bill Maher on Christianity: “The problem with faith … is it kind of screws up your priorities. Your priorities shouldn’t be … Read more
…Father Rutler knew them. His collection of columns written for Crisis and InsideCatholic over the years on the famous (and not-so-famous) people he has known will be released next week by Scepter Publishers under the title, Cloud of Witnesses: Dead People I Knew When They Were Alive. Father Rutler’s trademark thoughtfulness and bone-dry humor are … Read more
A New York Times/CBS News poll released yesterday on Catholic opinions about the Vatican, the pope, and the abuse scandal is a mixed bag of results, as you might have expected. Laurie Goodstein summarizes some of the findings: A majority of Roman Catholics in the United States are critical of the way Pope Benedict XVI … Read more
Given that Mark Shea’s column this morning is on feeding the hungry, this latest video from the Population Research Institute — exploding the myth that overpopulation is behind world hunger — is pretty timely. PRI’s POP 101 series is great — informative, well-produced, and starring the most adorable starving stick figures ever: Be sure to … Read more