The Rosary is a deeply scriptural prayer, and the words “The Lord is with thee” root that profoundly Christian prayer, not merely in Scripture but in Old Testament Scripture. One of the things that marks the writers of the New Testament is their appreciation for the fact that, since Scripture is primarily the work … Read more
I’ve been asked why I support the Reform CCHD Now petition requesting that the bishops suspend all Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) grants until a thorough review of the program has been completed. A series of reports by Reform CCHD have revealed clear evidence that grants are being given to organizations supporting abortion and same-sex marriage. … Read more
The Eastern Catholic and Orthodox tradition of Forgiveness Sunday — otherwise known as Get Out of your Comfort Zone Sunday — is fast approaching. (As my husband is canonically a Ukrainian Catholic, I have the good fortune of discovering another world of “new” old practices.) On the Sunday before Lent, during a Vespers service, you … Read more
Last year, my Constitutional Law class was discussing the so-called war on Christmas, part of the effort to remove all things religious (or at least all things Christian) from the public square. One of my students argued that holidays did not need to have a religious basis. As an example, she mentioned Valentine’s Day. I … Read more
Over 750 “tea parties” were held on April 15 of last year, protesting the excesses of the Obama administration — in particular, the pork-stuffed stimulus bill. Initially, the mainstream media tried to ignore the movement. They downplayed its size and influence, until the steady slide of President Obama’s popularity, the growing opposition to Congress’s health-care … Read more
It would be easy — too easy — to toss off Sloth as a sin that only afflicted the lazy. My initial instincts in writing about this deadly sin led me to do just that. But friends pointed out to me that there’s another and subtler form it takes, which occurs among the busiest workaholics. … Read more
A friend’s therapist once suggested that she consider becoming Episcopalian. Wouldn’t that be so much easier than wrestling with all her Catholic angst? This suggestion made me think about the many misconceptions and stereotypes surrounding religious faith — and, maybe especially, religious conversion. No metaphor can really capture the wild variety of conversion experiences … Read more
At the time Gabriel appeared to Mary, there was an emperor who ruled the known world. His name was Augustus Caesar. A common greeting among citizens of the empire at that time was, “Hail, Caesar!” Caesar, while originally a proper name, had already begun to morph into a title (a title that would be preserved … Read more
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has some surprising associations. For example, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights (LCCHR), founded in 1950, lobbies the Congress and White House on behalf of its 200 coalition members, which includes the USCCB. Members of the LCCHR must pay annual dues depending on the size … Read more
There is much talk of the possible canonization of one of Catholicism’s favorite “secular saints,” G. K. Chesterton. Inevitably, people point to one thing that doesn’t sit well in the American consciousness: Chesterton was fat. I hear little buzzings about it all over, and the subject of gluttony vs. abstemiousness comes up repeatedly as … Read more
Over the course of many months thinking about the deadly sins and opposing virtues, I’ve ranged pretty widely. In dealing with Greed and Generosity, I have drawn (so far as I know) the only direct connections yet between Chinese Communism, elves, ostrich farms, and the mortgage crisis. But that’s what being Catholic (from katholikos, or … Read more
More startling evidence has been unearthed about the Catholic Campaign for Human development that shows a disturbing pattern of cooperation between the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and groups that advocate abortion and same-sex marriage. Two reports, released yesterday by the American Life League (ALL) and Bellarmine Veritas Ministry (BVM), reveal that the Center for … Read more
In the Old Testament, the standard protocol for angelic appearances is as follows: First, the angel appears. Then, the human to whom he appears either: a) Does not realize he is an angel and so behaves as he would toward a fellow human being (that is, he makes the angel a nice meal and is … Read more
In the 1930s, a young Catholic professor at Oxford University began writing stories to read his children at Christmastime. They were tales full of well-known magical creatures — elves, dwarfs, knights, wizards, witches — but what made them unique was a race of his own imagining: the noble, plump little halflings he called “hobbits.” The … Read more
“Why does this man receive sinners and eat with them?” grumbled the scribes and the Pharisees. Knowing the pride they harbored in their hearts, Jesus spoke to them this parable. “What man is there among you,” He said, “who, having lost one sheep, will not leave the other ninety nine in the wilderness to find … Read more
If you’ve lived in our nation’s capital as long as I have, which is all my life, you get used to bigness, as a fact and also as a cherished ideal. Big office buildings like the Pentagon and the grotesque Rayburn Building, where many members of the House of Representatives hang out in style. Big … Read more
Last week, I considered the phenomenon of Envy infecting our spiritual aspirations. Envy, as you might recall, is the one sin St. Thomas Aquinas considered entirely devoid of anything good. He defined this vice concisely as “sadness at another’s good.” Put that way, this vice seems to amount to an almost pure form of malevolence. … Read more
My best friend still makes fun of me for something I said on a liquor-tilting night last century. Fired by some undergraduate combination of sudden conversion and Southern Comfort, I misexplained to her, “It’s just that my worldview is so unified!” This is one temptation of a certain kind of bookish Catholic. (Cradle Catholics … Read more
Last week, I chronicled something of the bafflement that ensued as I was confronted with the weirdly malleable term “neo-Catholic.” Judging from the combox discussion that followed, many readers share the tremendous confusion surrounding the term. Did it denote converts or those who loathe converts? Was it code for “neocon” or for non-neocon? Was it … Read more
As pro-lifers head to the nation’s capital this week, they are united in their opposition to abortion funding in the health-care bill. But, as they gather for the 37th annual March for Life, pro-life leaders are divided on the merits of the Personhood Initiative, a nationwide effort to establish legal “personhood” for the pre-born from … Read more