I was inclined to be kindly disposed toward the incoming archbishop of Los Angeles. Archbishop Jose Gomez faces a thankless task, taking over a church that has just suffered a major persecution — one conducted by his predecessor in office. Whatever the legal cloud following him up from Texas, Archbishop Gomez was formed for the … Read more
Science is mankind’s great success story since the Renaissance. Only the most obdurate Luddite can regret the computer chip, the Hubble telescope, and the heart bypass. But these material triumphs have come at a philosophical cost. The scientific method has been so successful in its own sphere that many intelligent people think it the only … Read more
As the Mysterious Get Benedict Society campaign to destroy Pope Benedict XVI continues shooting itself in the foot with various false starts, half-baked stories, and tales told by mainstream media idiots, the thing that continues to impress me is the sheer self-contradictory irony of the thing. It’s really quite crushing. We are instructed … Read more
With the upcoming retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens, the media have once again started counting the number of Catholics on the Supreme Court. A recent headline in the New York Times announced, “Stevens, the Only Protestant on the Supreme Court.” Well, so what? The Times article notes that Stevens’ retirement raises the possibility that … Read more
Last week, Peggy Noonan wrote that the media has done the Church a service in its reporting on the sex-abuse scandal. To a certain extent, I agree: Unfortunately, I believe that some in the Church would have continued ignoring or, in some cases, covering up instances of abuse. But the media has gone overboard with its misreporting … Read more
From the earliest days of religious communities, monks and nuns have practiced sustainable living. Environmental awareness is nothing new among religious, since many congregations ran farms, raised chickens, tended kitchen gardens, and carefully stored winter supplies of potatoes, apples, squash, and the like. Moreover, religious are known to use their resources wisely and modestly, all … Read more
Over on the Touchstone blog, Russell Moore has an interesting post about “Cremation and a New Kind of Christianity.” Citing Diarmaid MacCulloch’s new book, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, Moore notes that one of the greatest cultural shifts in the Church over the last century has been the overwhelming acceptance of cremation, when from its very … Read more
It’s now a cliché: “You can’t go home again.” And, in an obvious sense, that’s true. The passage of time changes the place you remembered, shutters candy stores where you once drank egg creams and watched your roguish friends shoplift Snickers. It sends the blue-haired neighbors who used to call the cops about the noise … Read more
I think the thing that is most repulsive about the current media feeding frenzy on Pope Benedict XVI is the appalling combination of slovenly malice with the sheer self-congratulatory demand that Catholics should be gratefulfor their vendetta against him. You know: “Oh, we make some mistakes now and then, but where would you be without … Read more
Sexual abuse is deplorable, no matter where it occurs. But one wonders: Why the near hysteria regarding sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, most of which occurred decades ago, from a society that celebrates the lack of constraints against almost every form of sexual activity, no matter how degraded? Is there any other instance of … Read more
I avoided reading the news over the weekend to better focus on properly celebrating Easter, so I missed this exchange between two archbishops over the abuse scandal in Ireland: Archbishop Williams, the head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, which claims 70 million adherents, was unusually blunt. “I was speaking to an Irish friend recently who … Read more
It’s sad to watch the New York Times, Washington Post, MSNBC, and others attack Pope Benedict XVI. The story they have spun over the last week about his supposed mishandling of the case of abusive Milwaukee priest Rev. Joseph Murphy is risibly tenuous. These once-great newspapers trivialize themselves by publishing front-page stories making obvious their … Read more
To wrap up Lent in my class, “Finding the Face of God in the 20th Century,” I decided to concentrate students’ minds with a chorus of De Profundis. For two solid weeks, we have worked our way through literature of the Holocaust: Eli Wiesel, Victor Frankl, and convert Roy Schoeman. And the timing seems fitting: … Read more
It is an honor, of sorts, to have one’s Lenten penances externally imposed, and the whole Church has shared in this honor this year. Led by an ignorant and malicious attack in the New York Times, the liberal media internationally have been doing everything in their power to pin something — anything — on Pope … Read more
A huge hat-tip to our friend Lizzie Scalia for posting a link to this 360 virtual tour of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. As someone who has never been to the Holy Land (and has no immediate hope of going), I find this totally mesmerizing, and moving. A nice way to gear up for … Read more
I once read an interview with Garrison Keillor in which he recounted going to a funeral. During the final prayers, the minister prayed for the deceased — “and for the next person here who is going to die.” He said that most of the guests were outraged and offended, but that he was moved and … Read more
Today is the feast of St. Joseph, which Margaret mentioned this morning. St. Joseph is one of my go-to saints and he doesn’t get the attention he deserves. It’s probably how he would like it, but the husband of Mary, earthly father of Jesus, deserves the highest honors. He is the patron of the universal … Read more
In an effort to show that folks like Michael Sean Winters at America magazine are not one-dimensional characters, I post his interesting comment on Catholics for Choice. In the midst of the various disagreements between the Catholic Left and Catholic moderates, everyone tends to be painted in black and white (I get that a … Read more
In an effort to show that folks like Michael Sean Winters at America magazine are not one-dimensional characters, I post his interesting comment on Catholics for Choice. In the midst of the various disagreements between the Catholic Left and Catholic moderates, everyone tends to be painted in black and white (I get that a … Read more
“You’ve got to disintegrate the positive/then figure-skate about the negative/latch on to the pejorative/don’t mess with Sister In-Between.” If that’s what I’ve been singing for the past few columns, let me here squirm out of the blame and shunt it onto the subject matters I’ve dealt with: modern liturgy and terminal cancer. These two things, … Read more