S.E. Cupp has a message in her New York Daily Post column for members of the New Atheist movement: This New Year, try some humility. Cupp says people like Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Bill Maher are “mean-spirited, radically unenlightened and uninterested in learning something new:” Though more than 95% of the world finds some … Read more
Happy New Year, IC readers! We’ve been taking it slow here over the holidays, and today will be no different — but we’ll be back with a vengeance in 2011. Below are a few last links from Oh-Ten, and feel free to add more in the comments — along with any resolutions, reflections, or hopes … Read more
Over at America magazine, William Byron considers the idea of conducting “exit interviews” with Catholics who have left the Church: The church in America must face the fact that it has failed to communicate the Good News cheerfully and effectively to a population adrift on a sea of materialism and under constant attack from the … Read more
Parag Khanna, senior research fellow at the New America Foundation, looks hopefully at the world stage and says we’ve been here before: Imagine a world with a strong China reshaping Asia; India confidently extending its reach from Africa to Indonesia; Islam spreading its influence; a Europe replete with crises of legitimacy; sovereign city-states holding wealth … Read more
The Dallas Observer reports that a woman is suing Halliburton for allegedly being fired because of her pregnancy. This is from the court documents: In 2008, she was transferred to Texas and worked as an administrative associate in the dispatch office at the Alvarado Camp. Although a good, dedicated and productive employee, she was terminated … Read more
I’d already been planning to catch True Grit in the theaters, and now this review from Stanley Fish in the New York Times, who calls it “a truly religious movie,” makes me even more curious: [In the original True Grit], we are told something about the nature of heroism and virtue and the relationship between … Read more
If you’re familiar with the popular social art project Post Secrets, you’ll get the concept behind Soul Secrets right away. Sponsored by Patheos, Soul Secrets asks visitors to share their most private thoughts on God and religion. Posters are anonymous, and the contributions can be intensely personal: I really want to come out as a … Read more
According to IBM, these technologies will be available in 2015: Batteries could recharge with air contact, leapfrogging lithium-ion for heavy metals. Other batteries, such as those in laptops, could be recharged via kinetic energy. Holographic video chat would be available on cell phones. Personalized “adaptive traffic systems” would lay out routes that avoid traffic in … Read more
Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa is the official preacher to the Papal household and his Christmas meditations this year focused on how we need to return to the methods and means of the apostles to evangelize. According to the The Catholic News Agency: The three meditations gave a response of faith, with the help of Blessed John … Read more
A little chapel in Wisconsin called Our Lady of Good Help has officially become the first site in the United States of a validated Marian apparition, according to the New York Times. In 1859, a Belgian immigrant named Adele Brise claims to have been visited by Mary three times. The Blessed Mother instructed Brise to devote her … Read more
Happy Christmas Eve! Things might be a little quiet around here today, as the InsideCatholic staff goes about its last-minute preparations for tomorrow (please tell me I’m not the only one who still has presents left to buy?…). In the meantime, below are a few quick holiday links to tide you over. And from all … Read more
It’s December 23rd, a little late for me to be throwing out gift ideas for Christmas. Then again, the celebration only just begins on the 25th, and then there’s the 12 days of Christmas and the feast of Epiphany. Plus, there’s something to be said for getting an early start on next year, right? When … Read more
First it was the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, on Oprah; now, the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia in Nashville are taking over NPR. Or, at least, “All Things Considered”: A segment on last night’s program profiled the Dominican sisters who, like their counterparts in Ann Arbor, are theologically orthodox, live in … Read more
I put this on our Twitter feed yesterday, but it’s too disgusting to let pass without a post. Lanny Davis, high powered Democratic lobbyist and former special counsel to President Bill Clinton, has a new client: Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo. That would be the same Laurent Gbagbo who refuses to recognize his re-election loss … Read more
2010 was a horrible year for health care — that is, if you believe abortion is not “health care.” The ObamaCare health legislation, if not amended by the next Congress, will result in hundreds of thousands of federally funded abortions that would not happen without that funding. But Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix, who is a … Read more
The Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues (PNCI), a pro-life outreach to members of democratically-elected legislatures, reports that Lord Nicholas Windsor has described abortion as “the single most grievous moral deficit in contemporary life.” The great-grandson of King George V penned the essay “Caesar’s Thumb: Europeans should not forget their most pressing moral issue: abortion” in … Read more
I’m a Ricky Gervais fan… a big Ricky Gervais fan. The original BBC version of The Office was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen, and there were moments in his follow up series, Extras, that were equally hilarious. I’ve also enjoyed his stand-up comedy — rare for me — as well as his frenetic and … Read more
The New York Times reported yesterday on Pope Benedict’s Christmas message to Vatican hierarchy in Rome where he spoke about the clergy sexual abuse crisis: Pope Benedict XVI said on Monday that the continuing sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church had reached a “degree we could not have imagined” this year, and that … Read more
One of my favorite year-end traditions has got to be The Boston Globe’s “Big Picture” blog’s photographic retrospective. And this year’s three-parter (Part One, Part Two, and Part Three) is certainly no reason to change my mind. The felicitous timing of some of these shots is absolutely mind-blowing. Enjoy!
I know next to nothing about Roald Dahl outside of his children’s books, but apparently his daughter Tessa is better known in England as a novelist, socialite, and drug addict with a checkered history. These days, though, she’s making headlines for a different kind of rebellion: as she puts it, “leaving the life of addiction … Read more