I blush to admit this, but there was a time when I could really get worked up about Marian dogma. In the years just before my conversion, I used to cite the Catholic affirmation of Mary’s Immaculate Conception and perpetual virginity as major obstacles to my intellectual submission. I just didn’t believe in that stuff. … Read more
Good morning! Just a quick round-up today; feel free to add your own links in the comments: A Wisconsin shrine has been approved as the first Marian apparition worthy of belief in the United States. Carl Olson parses the reports about a recent study claiming that “religion makes you happy because of its social rather … Read more
Last night our college celebrated the vigil of the Immaculate Conception in the exact same way as every other Catholic school in America — with mulled cider, makeshift medieval costumes, the performance of two Mystery plays depicting the Fall of Man and the Dream of St. Joseph, and chanted vespers. The usual. I’m sure that … Read more
Happy Feast of the Immaculate Conception! Over at First Things, David Mills has an excellent column on just what this doctrine means, why we believe it, and why it so confuses our Protestant brothers and sisters: [Mary] is, [Pope Pius IX] wrote, “far above all the angels and all the saints so wondrously did God … Read more
Time for some Friday morning links: As movements are being made in Congress to ease travel restrictions to Cuba, Delia Lloyd at Politics Daily says now is a good time to consider “Ten Reasons to Lift the Cuba Embargo.” CNN reports on a troubling trend in Nigeria: Children are increasingly becoming the targets of attacks … Read more
Over at the Canadian financial paper, The Financial Post, Diane Francis has a piece on what she sees as “the real inconvenient truth” being ignored at the UN’s Copenhagen conference: The “inconvenient truth” overhanging the UN’s Copenhagen conference is not that the climate is warming or cooling, but that humans are overpopulating the world. A planetary … Read more