2007 saw a flurry of secular films that were unabashedly pro-life in their outlook, even when they were far from family fare. Movies such as Waitress; the raunchy, R-rated Knocked Up; Bella; and Juno all achieved measures of success with mainstream moviegoers, from the little independent surprise Bella (which was marketed to church-goers) to the … Read more
Schall was born January 20, 1928, on a farm in Pocahontas County, Iowa. You cannot get more American than that. My mother was Bohemian and my father German-Irish. To my Jesuit colleagues at breakfast on my birthday I hint that this memorable event happened in a log cabin. Most doubt this as too picturesque, while … Read more
The lives of the saints always fascinate me. There are so many different ways for people to express their friendship with Jesus — so many different ways to grow in holiness. The canon of the Church’s saints and blesseds includes people from all walks of life. There are mystics, missionaries, martyrs, and heroic servants of … Read more
Picture a man in his late 50s, wearing headphones and cackling hysterically at a computer screen. That pretty much captures the image my wife remembers of my first encounter with machinima 15 months ago. After 37 years of marriage, my bride has resigned herself to some odd behavior from her mate, but I rarely laugh … Read more
The diamond wedding anniversary of Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh last November brought pages of nostalgic images in the British press. The people of 1947 look so physically different from those of modern Britain: thinner, more cheerful, more formally dressed, more active, the faces less inert, the features somehow more defined. Is it … Read more
Glenn Reynolds (aka "Instapundit") is the blogosphere’s resident libertarian transhumanist. We owe him a debt for leading the charge in making the blogosphere an important counterweight to the Usual Stuff from the mainstream media. And he has lived that belief personally by becoming the single most influential member of the New Media, simply by setting … Read more
This past November, the United Nations sponsored a meeting in Rio de Janeiro with about 1,700 participants from some 90 countries to consider the future direction of the Internet. The most serious issue they dealt with was supported by a group of nations that included China, Cuba, and Iran: Leaders from these countries are pressing … Read more
“Come sit over here,” my wife whispered to me. “Let’s give Dad a chance to be alone with her.” It was a quiet room in a hospice, the only sounds the muffled pumping of oxygen, and the softer and slower breathing of my mother-in-law, Esther, as she lay a few hours before her death. Her … Read more
Shanghai today is almost unrecognizable from what it looked like in the 1940s, when the young Jesuit priest Dominic Tang Yee-Ming (1908-1995) bicycled with his friend Rev. Ignatius Kung Pin-Mei from parish to parish to hear confessions. He taught English in the Jesuit high school in Shanghai where Kung was the principal and Latin teacher. … Read more
On January 9, Ray Ruddy, president of Boston’s Gerard Health Foundation, wrote a letter to Georgetown University President John J. DeGioia asking him to disavow or retract a Georgetown report entitled “Faith Communities Engage the HIV/AIDS Crisis.” The report, published in November by Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, & World Affairs, criticizes faith-based approaches … Read more
A friend recently put it to me that the Church has a Galileo Complex. Terrified by the historical narrative of the Church’s resistance to and persecution of science, Christians are averse to challenging “scientific” claims. God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? By John Lennox Lion Hudson, 192 pages, $14.99  A friend recently put it … Read more
In early August 2006, the Global War on Terror reached a new and disturbing phase, when it was discovered that Terror has now recruited certain liquids as deadly new allies in its bloodthirsty campaign to wipe out our freedom. As this dramatically heightened threat shows, Terror knows no bounds in its resourceful ability to find … Read more
Charlie Brown famously wondered how Christmas had gotten so commercial. Clearly, Charlie Brown was not an Italian-American; if he were, he might have wondered how Christmas had gotten so gluttonous. Â This Christmas season, as per longstanding tradition, we packed up our five kids and headed down to Long Island, joining my parents, my brother … Read more
From French ninja-antiquers to the Great Venezuelan Toilet Paper Caper, here’s a quick jaunt through the most ridiculous news items of the past month. Overwhelmed with information, we often miss revealing tidbits in the news that can be so enriching to our appreciation of life as it is lived early in the 21st century. Herewith, … Read more
InsideCatholic.com asked prominent Catholic leaders, writers, and commentators to offer their predictions for 2008. There were some surprises… InsideCatholic.com asked prominent Catholic leaders, writers, and commentators to offer their predictions for 2008. They run the gamut from the humorous to the serious, from the likely to the merely hopeful. Obviously, the prognostications expressed are strictly … Read more
Here’s a short list of my favorite cultural finds from 2007. If you happen to have seen, read or heard one of these, be sure to leave your own opinion in the Comments section below. I’d like to hear from you. ♦ ♦ ♦ Best Film: Golden Door The one film from this past year … Read more
God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe’s Religious Crisis is a rather scary book if you happen to be reading it on the island where I live, off the coast of North West Europe. Â Â God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe’s Religious Crisis By Philip Jenkins Oxford University Press, 2007 $28.00 Â Â God’s Continent: … Read more
A culture of death is a culture of fear and ours is a culture of death. Fear is a sort of background radiation, a certain slant of light coming through red, lowering clouds and casting a strange pall over what used to be called “normal life.” The signs of it are everywhere. Here’s some Muslim … Read more
Children are different from adults; better in some ways, worse in others. In my own later childhood, my favorite words of taunt and abuse to my contemporaries were, “Grow up!” I was an atheist by then; the phrase was never meant as an allusion to 1 Corinthians 13:11. But I was still thinking as a … Read more
All I want for Christmas is more CDs. Â Let me qualify that request, as piles of unplayed material accumulate in my study, my family room, my bedroom, my briefcase, and my car. Defying the “death of classical music” predictions, there have been some 1,500 CD releases yearly — and bargains abound. When I was … Read more