Texas Rep. Ron Paul will decide this month whether or not he’ll run for president in 2012. According to the Alex Jones Show, he will probably join the South Carolina debate between potential presidential contenders without necessarily making a commitment to run for president. Former governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura recently said he would “join … Read more
While Hispanic immigrants to America may be helping to keep the number of Catholics in the U.S. afloat, one sociologist says that the number of Catholics in Mexico is actually dwindling: More than 1,000 Mexicans left the Catholic Church every day over the last decade, adding up to some 4 million fallen-away Catholics between 2000 … Read more
The Guardian‘s George Monbiot is distressed at the lack of scientific evidence provided by the anti-nuclear movement — spearheaded by Dr. Helen Caldicott, the world’s leading anti-nuclear campaigner — to back their positions: The anti-nuclear movement to which I once belonged has misled the world about the impacts of radiation on human health. The claims … Read more
News out of the Vatican over the weekend: Pope Benedict XVI will call people of goodwill to join him in working for peace during a “day of reflection, dialogue and prayer for peace and justice in the world” to be held in Assisi on Oct. 27. At the start of the year, the Pope announced … Read more
While everyone is keeping an eye on developments in Libya, the situation in Ivory Coast is deteriorating more and more: One thousand people were suspected to be dead or missing in the town of Duekoue, Ivory Coast, after clashes throughout the country intensified, Caritas Internationalis reported. Aid organizations have been recovering hundreds of bodies in … Read more
If we want to understand why so many states teeter on bankruptcy, Stephen Moore, senior economics writer for the Wall Street Journal, says we should look no further than statistics about U.S. workers. There are now almost twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (8.7 million), a reversal from … Read more
USA Today reports some new trends on college campuses: While more young men and women are staying virgins, casual sexual encounters are also on the rise. The relationship game among college-age adults today is a muddle of seemingly contradictory trends. Recent studies indicate that traditional dating on campuses has taken a back seat to no-strings … Read more
Time for a few Friday morning links: Could the 70 small metal books recently discovered in Jordan turn out to be the biggest find for Christian history since the Dead Sea Scrolls? An elderly Belgian couple opts for euthanasia together rather than face death separately. In the wake of Chernobyl, “there were many media reports … Read more
On the hit show 24, Kiefer Sutherland spent a lot of time looking for stuff (bombs, chips, daughters, etc.); now he’s back in a new web-only series on Hulu, looking for something slightly different. Over at Patheos, Tony Rossi explains: When a cold-blooded hitman bursts into a hotel room to execute someone, the intended victim … Read more
The Catholic News Agency reports that the bishop of Delmas, France, has confirmed the extraordinary healing of a man who made a pilgrimage to Lourdes in 2002. Serge Francois, 56, had lost almost all mobility in his left leg after complications from two operations left him with a herniated disc. Bishop [Emmanuel] Delmas noted that … Read more
David Gibson of Commonweal alerts readers to a two-hour special airing on the History Channel tonight, giving a behind-the-scenes look at life in the Vatican and some rare footage of Pope Benedict at home and at work: The show provides an overview of the history of the Vatican, and focuses on everyday life in the … Read more
The UK’s Daily Mail reports on a recent study that shows that women consider themselves old at 29, whereas men don’t consider themselves old until about 58. Apparently, women’s perceptions of their own age relate to their appearance, but for men it’s about sexual performance. It is thought that this gulf between the sexes is … Read more
An interesting debate is unfolding around a Catholic school in New Orleans: St. Augustine’s, a historically African-American boys’ prep school, is apparently the last Catholic school in the country to use corporal punishment on students. In February, Archbishop Gregory Aymond called for an end to the practice, which he said “institutionalizes violence, runs counter to … Read more
On the little table at the back of my parish, there’s an assortment of bulletins, prayer cards, and church raffle tickets. Meanwhile, on the little table at the back of St. Laurence Church in Hamilton, England, there is…an original King James Bible. The ornate old Bible that had been sitting in plain view on a … Read more
I’m looking forward to this: Ken Burns and his partner Lynn Novick are producing a new 10-12 hour documentary series about the Vietnam War, which will air on PBS in 2016. The announcement was made by PBS yesterday. According to the Time magazine blog “Tuned In,” Burns has wanted to do the project for a while, but didn’t … Read more
Over at his blog on Forbes, Doug Bandow says that, when it comes to balancing the budget, the religious left’s question of “What would Jesus cut?” — and its implied answer: nothing — does no good in actually helping the poor. First, he points out that forced giving isn’t the same as charity: There’s nothing … Read more
In his weekly blessing yesterday, Pope Benedict called for an end to the fighting in Libya: “My fear for the safety and well-being of the civilian population is growing, as is my apprehension over how the situation is developing with the use of arms,” the pope said. “To international agencies and to those with political … Read more
A new biography on Mahatma Ghandi by Joseph Lelyveld called Great Soul depicts the famous Indian leader of independence as a “sexual weirdo, a political incompetent and a fanatical faddist.” Reviewing the book in the Wall Street Journal, Andrew Roberts says Lelyveld gives credit where it’s due, but concludes that Ghandi was an “archetypal … Read more
This graphic novel from the 1990s has some of the most beautiful artwork ever to grace the field. See, all the pages are painted, resulting in images like this: and this: Created by writer Mark Waid and artist Alex Ross, the graphic novel is set in the future of the DC universe, when the next … Read more
Margaret linked to a story this morning that I thought deserved a closer look. While studies have shown that regular church attendance is linked to greater levels of happiness, lower rates of substance abuse, and better marriages, a new study has reported that middle-aged people who are religiously active are also more obese. Is it … Read more