One way I teach my students to work with language is by showing them how to play with it — just as a psych professor teaches future therapists and ex-wives how to play with people’s minds. Sometimes I combine the methods proper to both disciplines — for instance, when I keep a straight face explaining … Read more
Catholic liberals (by which I mean theological liberals, not political liberals) never cease to amaze me. On the one hand, they appear to have a sincere devotion to their religion. On the other, they campaign for moral and theological changes that, if carried into effect, would tend to destroy their Church. Why do I say … Read more
Periodically I hear or read of a film that’s a “must-see” for Catholics. Depending on who’s recommending it, I’ll find out that the film is essential because it: Affirms the sanctity of life. (Bella) Celebrates the fundamental goodness of every person, even the simplest. (Forrest Gump) Dramatizes a sacramental vision of life. (Babette’s Feast) … Read more
An article published yesterday in the Scranton Times announced, “Bishop takes his place on the national stage with his staunch anti-abortion stance.” Bishop Joseph F. Martino wasn’t the only bishop who spoke boldly during the presidential campaign, but he was noticed, in part, because Scranton is Vice-President Elect Joe Biden’s hometown. Martino was also noticed … Read more
Last week, Greenville, South Carolina — the buckle of the Bible Belt — made national headlines for the second time in two weeks. The first story involved Rev. Jay Scott Newman and his comments in his parish bulletin about Catholics who voted for Obama. The second was the announcement that the fundamentalist Bob Jones University … Read more
This year we Americans approach Thanksgiving with ruffled feathers and quivering wattles, alert for the edge of the axe. Our country’s 50-year joyride has hit the wall, and we wait for the "jaws of life." The imaginary wealth that puffed up our investments and inflated our national salary has blown like a mist back to … Read more
In an op-ed published after the election, former Governor of New Jersey Christine Todd Whitman wrote, “Unless the Republican Party ends its self-imposed captivity to social fundamentalists, it will spend a long time in the political wilderness.” And who are these “social fundamentalists?” In Whitman’s political lexicon, they are “the people who base their … Read more
Bound up with the biblical understanding of God from the get-go is the conviction (one almost wants to call it the foregone conclusion) that God knows the future. This isn’t always necessarily the case with those delightful works of pagan imagination called “the gods.” In some pagan myths, one gets the impression that the … Read more
Last week, we at St. Mary’s Church in Greenville, South Carolina, found ourselves in the midst of a perfect media storm. The Sunday after the election, Rev. Jay Scott Newman, the parish rector (I serve as a weekend assistant), published his usual column for the parish bulletin, in which he commented on the election … Read more
Starting today, the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) is holding its annual meeting in Providence, Rhode Island. This is the second meeting since the group’s then-president Francis Beckwith shocked his peers by announcing his return to the Catholic Church and resigning from the presidency, which he has already described on this site here. Last year Beckwith … Read more
Ordinarily this column is devoted to people I have known. Our current national crisis is an excuse for me to mention three exceptions. I cannot say I really knew Winston Churchill, but once my father took me to see him when he was visiting Bernard Baruch in Manhattan. He had no idea who I was … Read more
I joked in a previous column that the vice of Avarice was associated with one political party, and Envy with another. Were that entirely true, we could say that the recent election marked a new era in vice — one where Greed is no longer good, but Envy’s exquisite. These questions are never … Read more
On May 5, 2007, I resigned as president of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS), and two days later I resigned my membership, one I held for more than 20 years. I did so because I quickly realized — after news of my April 29, 2007, public reception into the Catholic Church had spread like wildfire … Read more
Toward the end of the 1880s, Francis Marchese, publisher of the New York Italian newspaper Il Progresso Italo-Americano, wrote about his fellow countrymen in New York: "The Italian colony are exploited economically and morally by other Italians and by Protestants. The Italians are hated, treated like animals, persecuted worse than the Negro." In … Read more
Discussing the moral sense of Scripture would seem easy. After all, we’re talking the Good Book here. Even when they were busy abandoning Christianity as supernatural revelation from God, Americans for the past couple of generations still tended to treat the Bible as a Solid Moral Code Enshrining Tested Values with some lingering respectability. … Read more
I read an interview recently that is worth commenting on. The subject notes: I was feeling conflicted because my Catholicism is so deeply important to me. It was my sense of connection to the Almighty, to humanity, to my heritage, my upbringing . . . . And my Catholicism informed my view of the … Read more
Last week, I interrupted my series of reflections on the Seven Deadly Sins to accommodate the elections. Let’s hope that my dire predictions turn out to be alarmist, even hysterical. Much as I’d like to jump right back on the horse, and ride through the happy fields of Greed, or among Envy’s icy crags, … Read more
We noted last week that one of the principal problems of trying to treat Scripture as a purely human book is that, though God can supernaturalize nature, we cannot naturalize the supernatural. God can assume a human nature and join it to His divinity, but we cannot take a supernatural thing and reduce it to … Read more
Until the end, I held out hope that Sen. John McCain would somehow pull off the upset. Alas, the election came down to the economy, and as is usually the case, the voters pinned the blame on the party whose man is in the Oval Office. For those of us Catholics not motivated solely by … Read more
In following the presidential contest this year, I have been at times amazed and disgusted at the kabuki theater our political discourse has become. The two major party candidates have presented themselves as both more and less than what they really are—trying to capture voters by simultaneously promising that they will solve our problems and … Read more