Stanley reminds us that curiosity isn’t a virtue. For Pascal, it’s nothing more than the vanity of beings in love with their own capabilities. It distracts us from the duties that should flow from love of God and each other. Curiosity can easily morph into love of diversity or losing . . . . Continue Reading »
The city council of Camden, a London borough, tells a Catholic parish it can’t use faith-based vocabulary to advertise talks on God and climate change : St Francis is a saint normally associated with peaceful, eremetic living and an overwhelming empathy for the animal kingdom. He is invoked in . . . . Continue Reading »
From the latest Barna Update : From the early 1990s through 1999 just 5% of the Senior Pastors of Protestant churches were female. Since that time the proportion has slowly but steadily risen, doubling to 10% in 2009. Not surprisingly, a large share of the woman in the pastorate – 58% – . . . . Continue Reading »
A Spanish reader wrote a furious rebuttal to an old post about the growing antipathy Spaniards show towards Jews. I argued that as Spain became less Christian, it also became more hostile to Jews, and tha the Spanish left hates Jews for the same reason it hates Christianity.The Spanish reader took . . . . Continue Reading »
Normally I don’t quote myself, but this item from my “Inner Workings” blog at Asia Times might be of interest to First Things readers.Gaming the collapse of the dollar reserve system remains a favorite pastime of forex and commodity traders. Japan’s new prime minister Yukio . . . . Continue Reading »
Is there a line between transparency and compiling an enemies list? See this Washington Times exclusive: White House Collects Web Users’ Data Without Notice . In the wake of last month’s health-care email fiasco, one might wonder what the people in the administration were . . . . Continue Reading »
You’ve probably read the lovely essay by Michael Ledeen in our August/September issue: ” Death in Naples .” If you haven’t already, you’re missing delightful snipits from Italian culture like this: The intimacy between St. Gennaro and the Neapolitans is more the kind . . . . Continue Reading »
Religious education and youth ministry often sacrifice intellectual rigor for sociability and sensibility. Jesus devolves into “Our Homie,” and normal adolescent questioning leads mostly to apostasy under another name. People who underwent Catholic sacramental catechesis from the 1970s on . . . . Continue Reading »
—FT assistant editor Stefan McDaniel’s weighing in on the limits of free trade at the Public Discourse —Sally Thomas on heart-able saints at Icons & Curiosities —Wesley Smith’s cover story in the latest issue of National Review : “A Myth Is as Good as a Mile: . . . . Continue Reading »
These saints, they are so heart-able. Take Saint Francis here, for example. Everybody hearts Saint Francis. Even people who don’t normally believe in saints heart Saint Francis so much they put statues of him in their gardens. The Humane Society especially hearts Saint Francis, and why not? . . . . Continue Reading »
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