Rev. Robert Sirico of the Acton Institute takes Washington Post columnist Anthony Stevens-Arroyo to task for a piece he wrote about Catholic Social Teaching. Stevens-Arroyo argues that “since the world economy has been so badly distorted by those seeking advantage of one class over the other, Catholic social justice demands a redistribution of wealth.” Rev. … Read more
Over the past week, there has been a lot of disagreement in the Catholic blogosphere about the tactics pro-life group Live Action used to obtain sting videos of Planned Parenthood. The organization, run by student activist Lila Rose, released its first video showing a Planned Parenthood staffer who appears to give aide and advice to a sex … Read more
I was recently delighted by the sting operation performed against Planned Parenthood by Live Action, whose members posed as a pimp and a prostitute, intending to test the organization’s willingness to enable the exploitation of underaged girls and expose its cynical disregard of the human dignity of women. None of this should surprise those of … Read more
For someone who doesn’t feel very comfortable with small talk, college has been a great help. By the time eleventh grade rolled around, conversations with strangers were easy. Why? Because I didn’t have to start them. “What schools are you looking at?” “Have you applied?” “Have you gotten in?” Once I entered college, the questions … Read more
Do you lean toward Alexander Hamilton or Thomas Jefferson? Proponents of their political and economic philosophies have been jostling for the upper hand since the beginning, and the Founding Father you favor will often define your political and economic views. In her Real Clear Politics piece on Monday, Salena Zito says we are currently transitioning … Read more
God bless Shahbaz Bhatti, “Pakistan’s leading Catholic politician,” who has said he won’t stop speaking out against Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, even after receiving death threats: Bhatti, Minister for Minorities and the first Christian to hold a cabinet post in Pakistan, has received multiple death threats. He said during a trip to Canada: “I have been … Read more
My daughter came home from her college Sociology class yesterday and told me that her instructor had alluded to the following “fact” about Pope Innocent VIII several times. from Wikipedia: The unsympathetic Roman chronicler Stefano Infessura provides many lively details, among them the apparent attempt to revive Innocent VIII on his deathbed by blood transfusions … Read more
The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) is currently trying to determine whether infertility treatments should be included in individual and small-business health-care policies that will be made available through state-based insurance exchanges in the new health-care plan. If these treatments are deemed an “essential health benefit,” they will be covered when these policies … Read more
“Chu lai! Chu lai!” Guang-Zhong Gu awoke in the pre-dawn hours, bathed in the sweat of a balmy Shanghai September. Unfamiliar voices barked, “Come out! Come out!” Lights overhead flashed on. The cold steel snap of ammo clicked into machine guns. Fists pounded at the doors lining the long corridors of the Xujiahui Seminary, normally … Read more
Those lactivists from the sit-in at the Hirshorn will be glad to hear this: Michelle Obama is championing a new cause in association with her “Let’s Move” campaign to end childhood obesity — breastfeeding. Mrs. Obama said: “We also want to focus on the important touch points in a child’s life. And what we’re learning … Read more
Bloomberg BusinessWeek ran a rather unromantic Valentine’s Day story — a profile of AshleyMadison.com, the premier “dating” website for people looking for an adulterous affair. The online business, based in Toronto and expanding around the world, was conceived, launched, and is now run by Noel Biderman, a 39-year-old married father of two who believes that … Read more
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