The reaction of Catholic leaders to Larry Doyle’s recent satiric piece at HuffPo, “The Jesus-Eating Cult of Rick Santorum,” has been exactly the wrong reaction. We have taken offense, demanded apologies of Arianna Huffington, and asked that we please not be exposed through satire to the virulently-anti Catholic opinions of the Church’s opponents. Doyle’s piece, … Read more
It all started at the Tune Inn. The age-old dive on Pennsylvania Avenue Southeast has been the launching pad for countless forays into “innovative policy initiatives,” and this one was no exception. A few Capitol Hill staff alumni had gathered for an informal reunion in the back room, beyond the louts, the lobbyists, and the … Read more
My colleague, Paul Kengor, wrote a brilliant article this week saying that Team Obama will try to cast the presidential election either in terms of class warfare—if Romney is the Republican nominee—or a battle over social issues, if Santorum gets the nod. If it’s Romney, the president’s team will have home field advantage. If it’s … Read more
Each month, to test our courage, my wife Lisa and I stand before an auditorium full of couples about to marry in the Catholic Church and explain to them the Church’s teachings about sexuality. The crowd is generally not happy to be there. Many are not Catholic and few, needless to say, want to hear … Read more
It certainly seems as if we worship the same God. After all, we call God by the same name. Arabic-speaking Christians, including Eastern Catholics such as Maronites and Melkites, use the word “Allah” for the God of the Bible. But are they the same God? The question is not answered by simple linguistic identity, as … Read more
Let’s have Christ our President Let us have him for our King Cast your vote for the Carpenter That you call the Nazarene The only way we can ever beat These crooked politician men Is to run the money changers out of the temple Put the Carpenter in. —Woody Guthrie In his Rick’s Degrees of … Read more
Rick Santorum was defending himself when he responded to George Stephonopoulus on ABC’s This Week: “To say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes (me) throw up.” Stephonopoulus had given Santorum an opportunity to renounce an old statement about Kennedy; instead Santorum doubled down. It was the … Read more
If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and motherand wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple (Luke 15: 26) In the early Church, to be a saint was in most cases to be a martyr. Persecution of Christians … Read more
From 1917 to 1991, for more than 80 years, Russia was ruled by an ideology of oppression which paraded as a beacon of liberation. But within 40 years, the masquerade was over, even if the misery remained. Novels like Dr Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak; One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn; … Read more
Many are the strange things going on in the Unreal Hotel. In Room 101, a man and woman are lying together, and in more ways than one. In Room 102, it is a man and a man. In Room 103, a fellow named George, who has grown weary of his life, is meeting surreptitiously with … Read more
Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi is fighting for the mandate in Obamacare designed to force all health care plans to provide free (that is without a co-pay) contraception, morning after pills, and sterilization. She insists that this is a battle for women’s health. Those who see this as a question of religious freedom have largely let the … Read more
President Obama’s mandate requiring free access to contraception with virtually no employer exemption is at core a consitutional threat to religious liberty, not a heated debate about contraception and Church teaching. However, it quickly turned into that. So now that we’re on the subject. Advocates of President Obama’s contraception mandate should admit that its main … Read more
There they go again. The mainstream media has once more dug up a statement made by Rick Santorum about religion in an attempt to paint him as a member of some sort of new, clandestine Catholic Inquisition, poised to take over the American government after the next election. He can only be stopped if free-thinking … Read more
Do you feel a twinge of despair at what is happening in the American political stadium? Are there any Catholic voters daunted at the prospect of having to choose between two narcissist egomaniacs come November, to say nothing of the bizarre characters parading about in the Republican primary? Are you irked by the relentless, dumbed-down … Read more
There is nothing wrong with vocational training; a fulfilling career is an important part of a good life. Much of my academic work over the years has been devoted to career preparation. I was once a Dean of Medicine and there are few more vocational courses than medicine. Our students were all bright but they … Read more
Well did John Senior advise parents and teachers to prepare today’s youngsters for great study, with experiences of the good, such as gardening, graceful dancing, and gazing at the stars dancing above, and also making sure to delight in a thousand good books, before getting to the hundred or so great books by the master … Read more
Yesterday’s Michigan primary, in which the one-time dark horse Rick Santorum came within a hairsbreadth of beating Mitt Romney in his home state (his father was its governor) will have the elites in Republican party circles racing frantically for their checkbooks, in the hope of putting out the prairie fire that is Santorum’s burgeoning candidacy … Read more
Few words are as evocative as that of “home.” The multiplicity of usages and shades of meaning are really rather impressive. Take, for instance, the simple example of saying “he finally went home.” This could mean at least two, very different things; one, a long overstayed and saucy guest finally left your party, or, two, … Read more
My “Beyond Satire” meter is, once again, registering in the red zone. I’m not sure why this story made the news; maybe because we’re talking Britain and not India or China. Women are being granted illegal abortions by doctors based on the sex of their unborn baby, an undercover investigation by The Daily Telegraph reveals. … Read more
Last week, Jason Jones wrote a piece discussing Mitt Romney’s past pro-life (or pro-choice) political record. Jones is certainly correct that Romney’s pro-life past is hazy at best. But there is an alternative option to the “The Three Possible Romneys” that Jones puts forth. And it’s not simply “sitting this [election] out,” as Jones recommends. … Read more