Joseph Bottum

A month ago, Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI), the latest and possibly the last holder of public office among America’s most famous Catholic family, stated in an interview with Catholic News Service: I can’t understand for the life of me how the Catholic Church could be against the biggest social . . . . Continue Reading »

You gotta love the man. Barry W. Lynn, the indefatigable director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, explains, on abortion provisions in the health-care bill , that there’s “a visceral sense that this [Catholic lobbying] went way over the line—even if as a . . . . Continue Reading »

According to the official Vatican communiqué, Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, had a private audience with Pope Benedict last Friday to discuss the following: In the course of the cordial discussions attention turned to the challenges facing all Christian communities at the . . . . Continue Reading »

On Sunday’s editorial page , the New York Times took up the confrontation between the city council of Washington, D.C., and the Catholic archbishop of Washington, Donald Cardinal Wuerl. Meanwhile, in the Washington Post , Wuerl himself addressed the question of whether the archdiocese and its . . . . Continue Reading »

An interesting essay by the economics writer Meghan McArdle in the Atlantic on the evangelical anti-debt preacher—guru? prophet? it’s hard to know just what to call him—named Dave Ramsey. The essay is surprisingly short: If anything called out for long-form journalism, this seemed . . . . Continue Reading »

Via John J. Pitney Jr. , the word from Marci Hamilton that the Stupak amendment “violates the Constitution’s separation of church and state. The anti-abortion movement is plainly religious in motivation, and its lobbyists and spokespersons represent religious groups, as is illustrated by . . . . Continue Reading »

E.J. Dionne writes a pretty good column: Don’t Let Abortion Destroy Health Care Reform : From the outraged comments of the abortion rights movement, you’d think that Rep. Bart Stupak’s amendment to the House version of the health care bill would all but overturn Roe v. Wade. No, . . . . Continue Reading »

Patrick Kennedy, the congressman from Rhode Island, wrote, “The fact that I disagree with the hierarchy on some issues does not make me any less of a Catholic.” And Thomas J. Tobin, the bishop of Providence, replies : Well, in fact, Congressman, in a way it does. Although I wouldn’t . . . . Continue Reading »

In this case, from the always-interesting economics blogger Megan McArdle : The original compromise, segregating the funds so that the federal subsidy wouldn’t pay for the abortion part, was a transparently ineffective gimmick. How transparently ineffective? If it really was just her money . . . . Continue Reading »

Over at the linguists’ group blog, Language Log , they’re taking up the school-marm’s rule against starting a sentence with a conjunction. But you already know the rule, of course. And who’s to say the school-marms were wrong? The Bible, as it turns out: This morning I . . . . Continue Reading »