Sebastian White O.P.

The Vatican has released a document providing guidelines and criteria for promoting and considering vocations to the priesthood. Carol Glatz , writing for CNS, says: the Congregation for Catholic Education sought to address a widespread demand for pastoral guidelines for fostering vocations . . . . Continue Reading »

People often talk about Catholic guilt, but I’d say gym guilt is at least as prevalent. I meet people all the time who feel like a moral failure if they miss a workout or, in a moment of weakness, cave in and eat carbs after 7:00 p.m. And in almost comical parody of religious devotion, the health god beckons its shamefaced disciples to run back to the gym and confess to the trainer: “That’ll be ten push-ups and ten sit-ups; now make a good act of contrition.” … Continue Reading »

What is the best way to communicate the truth about human dignity in the public square? Are secular terms to be preferred, since they are not easily and quickly dismissed by non-believers? Or are explicitly and purely secular arguments simply not up to snuff for demonstrating the sanctity of all . . . . Continue Reading »

Many people have been upset by the Vatican’s doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR). Understandably enough, most people haven’t actually read the assessment (after all, ecclesiastical documents tend not to be page-turners). Judging only from most media reports, we’d have to conclude that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is gathering sticks for the first auto-da-fè in centuries… . Continue Reading »

Trolling through the news, an article caught my attention. It stated, “When your best intentions go south, new research suggests that it wasn’t the devil that made you do it. It was your brain. Will power, the study found, is a finite resource, one that can be easily . . . . Continue Reading »

Peter Schjeldahl’s post  on Klimt’s “Adele” got me thinking. The thirty-five million dollar painting, he says, “isn’t a peculiarly incoherent painting, as I had once thought. It’s not a painting at all, but a largish, flattish bauble: a thing. It is . . . . Continue Reading »

Some say that Obama’s support of gay marriage will be the spanner in the works of his reelection campaign: “I believe that this will lead to President Obama being a one-term president,” said NOM president Brian Brown, during a call with reporters. “If you look at key swing . . . . Continue Reading »

A recent Gallup Poll revealed that nearly half of Americans believe in a fairly strict version of creationism, and that “theistic evolution” is apparently on the decline. Believers and nonbelievers alike often find it difficult to reconcile evolution with theism. Thus, there is a . . . . Continue Reading »

After being in the city for a week now, I’m astonished by how many times I’ve been accosted by representatives of Planned Parenthood. Often directly in front of a Catholic church, these young, cheery volunteers blithely ask, “Would you like to hear from Planned Parenthood . . . . Continue Reading »

An interesting piece of journalism in yesterday’s LA Times  marshals economic and sociological factors (is anyone shocked?) against the “single-mother revolution.” . . . those who opt for single motherhood are hurting not just themselves but their offspring. The children of . . . . Continue Reading »