Recently, I encountered an online discussion among Catholic converts and Protestants that strayed into the topic of the St. Joseph house-selling kit. It was meant to be a sort of “gotcha!” moment for Catholics defending the cult of the saints. While I have no intention of going into the arguments concerning this particular practice, I … Read more
Insofar as it touches on questions of ethnic origin and national identity, archaeology can be a contentious field. Nowhere is this more true than in present day Israel/Palestine, where every new discovery or theory must travel through a political filter that often does more to shape a scholar’s opinion than do the cold facts of … Read more
Last week, I pointed readers to the fascinating debate between Robert Spencer and Peter Kreeft on the subject of Islam, promising to offer my own reflections later. If you haven’t yet watched the debate, go bookmark it now, and when you sit down to watch it, prepare to be . . . unsettled. Pour yourself … Read more
I never would have called myself a Democrat, but if this study from the Hollywood Reporter about Americans’ TV preferences is to believed, I should be a Prius-driving, arugula-munching, Pelosi-loving liberal: According to months of data from leading media-research company Experian Simmons, viewers who vote Republican and identify themselves as conservative are more likely than … Read more
No one will bear witness for the witness. — Paul Celan, poet and Holocaust survivor “To believe” has thus a twofold reference: to the person, and to the truth: to the truth, by trust in the person who bears witness to it. — The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 177 Â Elie Wiesel survived Auschwitz … Read more
This is a confession, of sorts. Some may think that confession comes easily to Catholics. It is, after all, a sacrament of the Church. But confession does not come easily to me, or I think, to most Catholics. Neither do I think it should. The story that follows is not easy to tell. I am … Read more
The surprise results of this morning’s elections for USCCB president have had the blogging community in uproar. Most Catholics are already familiar with the new president, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York City; but his vice president — Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville — hasn’t had quite as high a profile (though surely that’s about … Read more
Daniel Stone’s weekend article from Newsweek on the sheer scope and impossibility of the modern-day presidency is fascinating reading: Obama has looked to many models of leadership, including FDR and Abraham Lincoln, two transformative presidents who governed during times of upheaval. But what’s lost in those historical comparisons is that both men ran slim bureaucracies … Read more
In what can only be described as a sea change, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York has just been elected president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He won in a runoff, beating out controversial frontrunner Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas. It’s the first time since the 1960s that the sitting vice president didn’t … Read more
Bullying is all over the news these days — particularly as it relates to suicide and depression in children and young adults. This kind of behavior has always been around, but appears to have reached new heights — and is happening at younger ages. Marjorie Campbell wrote about bullying in a recent article right here … Read more
People are worried about me. One reader writes: You don’t give enough credit to the system we have in America. It is the closest thing to idealistic conditions as humanly possible (City of God, Augustine). That’s bad enough, of course. But in addition to my failure to identify America with the City of God, I … Read more
In the House of Commons in the last week, of January, a Labour member for North-West Camberwell, Charles Ammon, spoke in favor of bombing Rome. He was a lifelong Socialist and Methodist lay preacher who would be raised to the peerage the following year as 1st Baron Ammon of Camberwell and then serve as chief … Read more
Over at the American Papist, Thomas Peters points out this story about a Pittsburgh parish that’s raising eyebrows with its new Mass time: Old-time Pittsburghers remember when a church in the city offered services in the early morning hours for employees who worked odd hours. One church is now bringing that tradition back with a … Read more
A new indigenous tribe has been identified in Peru. The Yines are a nomadic people who have never had contact with the outside world. They were discovered living in a national reserve of the country’s Amazonian rainforest. The government has promised the tribe protection, but that’s increasingly difficult to do. Drug traffickers continue to push … Read more
When the Catholic bishops meet in Baltimore this week, they will elect the next president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Usually, the chatter among Catholic punditry about who will be elected is minimal, given the longstanding tradition of elevating the vice president to the president’s job. This year is different: Bishop … Read more
An hour after arrival in Minneapolis Philip Knight called on his client, but the man who answered the door was clearly a policeman. “Is Genevieve Magee at home?” “Who are you?” Though he was on a step below the man, Philip could see the top of his head. “I was going to ask you the … Read more
Who is to blame for the suicides of teenage boys “struggling with sexual identity” that have been so highly publicized in the last two months? If we are to believe many media sources, primary blame rests on bullying peers. But I wonder: Is the homosexual community — and the Catholic Church — ignoring the darker, … Read more
If you thought Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke hated testifying in front of Congress before, it’s about to get a lot worse. Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) — author most recently of the best-selling End the Fed — is about to become chairman of the House Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy. That means he’ll have oversight … Read more
Time for a few Friday morning links: Yesterday the pope released Verbum Domini, an apostolic exhortation on Sacred Scripture. It’s a door-stop of a text — the 208-page PDF can be read here, or you can read excerpts via Zenit here. A Christian woman has been sentenced to death in Pakistan for “blasphemy.” Next week … Read more
“Man is a political animal,” said Aristotle, meaning that man is that sort of living creature who thrives best in the context of a polis, a free and self-governing city state. St. Thomas Aquinas would take up this dictum of Aristotle’s and flesh out its implications for a Christian culture, but before we consider that, … Read more