On Tuesday, a group of Catholics in Washington, D.C. issued a statement calling for a greater “spirit of civility” as Americans approach the 2008 presidential elections. When I saw the title of the statement — “A Catholic Call to Civility in Public Debate” — I thought, what a great idea! Then I read it, and … Read more
It has been one year since Pope Benedict XVI’s ill-starred Regensburg Address. We say “ill-starred” because the media fixated on a side comment the pope made about Islam, apparently to clinch a depiction of the pope as intolerant. In the process, they obscured the luminous center of the pope’s speech, the relationship of science and … Read more
It has been said that while writing the Summa, Saint Thomas Aquinas was, among other things, engaging in a dialogue with Saint Augustine across the cenÂturies. In his extraordinary Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict XVI also seems to regard, in his mind’s eye, a number of interlocutors, living and dead.    It has … Read more
The clash of civilizations is as old as history, and equally as old is the blindness of those who wish such clashes away; but they are the hinges, the turning points of history. In the latter half of the 16th century, Muslim war drums sounded and the mufti of the Ottoman sultan proclaimed jihad, but … Read more