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Novels Against Marriage

In light of Rhett Smith’s interesting (and true!) thoughts on what novels do for us, I was intrigued to read Francis Watson’s rather critical comments of their form in western literature: The assumption that ‘love’ (or ‘romantic love’) is the primary basis for . . . . Continue Reading »

The Economics of Sainthood

Want to be canonized as a saint? You may want to move to Italy: 46.7 percent of saints lived in that country at the time of their deaths. That is just one of the many interesting tidbits to be gleaned from Barro, McCleary, and McQuoid’s new paper, The Economics of Sainthood (a preliminary . . . . Continue Reading »

The Truth About the Crusades

Robert Louis Wilken, a board member and frequent contributor of First Things , has a review in the Wall Street Journal of two new books on the Crusades: The recorded past and the remembered past are seldom the same. Nowhere is this more evident than with the Crusades. The Crusades were a belated . . . . Continue Reading »

Should Organs Be Harvestable From ERs?

The Washington Posthas a story about a pilot program to identify donatable organs from the cadvers of people who die in emergency rooms. From the story:Using a $321,000 grant from the Department of Health and Human Services, the emergency departments at the University of Pittsburgh Medical . . . . Continue Reading »

Undercutting the Bishops

The American Catholic bishops sent a bulletin to parishes this weekend, urging Catholics to oppose the abortion funding provisions in the current version of the health-care. Unfortunately, Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association, promptly endorsed the current bill: . . . . Continue Reading »

She is Not Alone

Ok, so my rant about Beth Moore was, well, imprecise.  But there is one characteristic of Moore’s efforts that her critic missed, and it is one which is pervasive among many teachers. While in her case it dove-tailed very nicely with the word-faith approach, it expresses itself quite . . . . Continue Reading »

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