Bits and pieces of my mother’s childhood in Mexico have trickled down to me through the years, usually at unexpected times. As a child, she would tell me of the ceremonies in her village during Holy Week, the posadas during Advent, and the processions through the fields on the feast of St. Isidore, the … Read more
Recent books by proponents of atheism like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris have included indictments of religion for promoting violence, rhapsodizing about the newly humane and peaceful world that would result if religion could only disappear. (Somehow they are not particularly troubled by the deaths of more than a hundred-million victims of atheistic violence during the … Read more
This morning I sent my column on the future of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process to Michael Sean Winters — a writer at America magazine — in the spirit of collegiality. What I got in return is the implication on the America blog that I am either anti-Semitic or am aiding the rise of anti-Semitism among … Read more
In Monday’s meeting at the White House, President Barack Obama strongly urged Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to reopen the peace process toward a two-state solution with the Palestinians. Obama also told Netanyahu, with surprising bluntness, “Settlements have to be stopped.” The response from Netanyahu was ambiguous. At first he said he would pursue the … Read more
In this Crisis Magazine classic, Russell Shaw explains why Catholic dissenters got so far so fast in the years following the council. The Second Vatican Council closed just over 40 years ago, on December 8, 1965. For most people, the postconciliar era had begun. But for me, that troubled time in recent Catholic … Read more
Rev. Richard McBrien comments on the appearance of President David Duke at Howard University’s 2009 commencement exercises: It is not a surprise that the media and most commentators have focused on what was evident to just about everyone present at Howard University for Sunday’s graduation ceremonies and to those who subsequently read the full text … Read more
I remember it like yesterday. The insistent kitchen phone was ringing on the other side of the wall as I woke. I had gone to bed exhausted with sorrow and fear the night before, having returned from the hospital where my dad lay, snoring loudly in the depths of a coma. Just as my eyes … Read more
Modern communitarian political thought began as an academic reaction to the publication of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice in 1971, which sought to establish liberal philosophical assumptions as universally valid. Since then communitarianism has developed as a more penetrating critique of liberalism, though it has in turn been criticized for failing to develop … Read more
The scandal of President Barack Obama receiving an honorary degree at Notre Dame yesterday pales in comparison with the ongoing scandal of Catholics in Congress. Of the 161 Catholics presently serving, only 26 have 100 percent pro-life voting records, while 28 have a zero percent rating. Sixty-five have less than a 20 percent pro-life rating … Read more
In this Crisis Magazine classic, George Sim Johnston makes the case that ancient Christianity was unmistakably Catholic. In his famous review of Leopold von Ranke’s History of the Popes, Thomas Babington Macaulay, the great Victorian essayist, launches into a purple passage that Catholic students once knew by heart. It is one of the great … Read more
It usually starts with the missalettes — those lightweight booklets scattered around the pews of your parish church. They contain all the readings of the Sunday Masses, plus some hymns and responses in the back. There’s nothing between the covers that would offend an orthodox sense of the faith, and most of the songs are … Read more
If you’re like me, you can’t wait for Barack Obama to speak at the University of Notre Dame — if only because it will put a stop to the flurry of news stories and commentaries about the scandal. (Such as . . . the one you’re presently reading. And my piece from two weeks ago … Read more
Over Lent, we took a good long look at one of the legs of Catholic moral teaching: the Ten Commandments. Some people have the notion that the Ten Commandments are pretty much all you need for Catholic moral teaching. Hew to them and you’ll be a moral person — and being a moral person … Read more
When it comes to Pope Benedict XVI’s visit in Jerusalem this week, there is much skepticism on both sides of the Israeli wall. The average Israeli “doesn’t care” about the pope’s trip, says Gershon Baskin, president of the Israeli Palestinian Center for Research and Information. The expectation is that the pope will say something about … Read more
A popular pastime among Catholic commentators lately could be called “counting the bishops.” In the last election, we counted the bishops who spoke out regarding their document on voting, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” or on the qualifications of Barack Obama as a Catholic candidate. With the latest controversy over the upcoming Notre Dame … Read more
I had a fleeting desire to see the newish movie Watchmen, until I heard that it was yet another in the genre of “let’s peel off the facade of the world and get down to the truthiest truth underneath, which is, of course, stench and corruption.” This must be an awfully old theme. Older even … Read more
“For this one night, Jesus is in the tomb.” These words, spoken to me by a priest on Holy Thursday, haunted my soul as the doors of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem were locked and I found myself spending the night in the tomb of Christ, which functions as the altar of … Read more
An op-ed published in the New York Times on Tuesday by veteran Vatican reporter John L. Allen Jr. lists four ways Pope Benedict XVI can “move things forward in the Middle East.” He recommends the Holy Father endorse the two-state solution, call upon Palestinians to reject extremism, urge support for Holy Land Christians, and advise … Read more
In this Crisis Magazine classic, Mary Jo Anderson looks at the qualities that make a great bishop… and points to those strengths in action. Notwithstanding the sex-abuse scandal that has buffeted the Catholic Church in the United States, Catholics genuinely admire bishops whose courage and dedication have made a difference in their dioceses. … Read more
There we were, the four of us: me; an academic colleague of mine; a 60-something, salt o’ the earth, sarcastic Yankee pastor; and a smart Midwestern seminarian on the brink of ordination. The beer was flowing freely — into my glass, anyway — and we were having the kind of conversation laymen have with priests … Read more