While a growing plurality of the American public rejects the specific initiatives of the Obama Administration (health care reform, the stimulus bill, “too big to fail”), the President and Democratic Congress have earned their high disapproval ratings largely by ignoring the fact that a . . . . Continue Reading »
I am always uncomfortable when a new “fundamental right” is declared that nobody knew existed before. I mean if everything that is beneficial is a “right,” then eventually the concept itself will become watered down like inflation devalues currency. Or to put it . . . . Continue Reading »
Writing in The Guardian , the leftiest of the English broadsheets, a former MP offers a “manifesto for secularist change” . He leads the article with the claim that “secularism” is “unfairly characterized and attacked by religious leaders as a way of seeking to protect . . . . Continue Reading »
You know how you’re so proud of yourself because you you can still recite a few lines from Desiderata or a poem by Rod McKuen? Yeah, well, that’s nothing. John Basinger has memorized all 10,565 lines of Milton’s Paradise Lost : Pounding the treadmill in 1993, John . . . . Continue Reading »
I wasn’t able to follow all the news, never mind all the news-analysis and pundit chatter, about the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the UK this past week. I knew it was happening, and had a sense of its historic character. I saw some headlines about the major events and reactions.Rolling . . . . Continue Reading »
Reflecting on the last day of the State Visit, I indulge a couple of personal thoughts. First, the Rite of Beatification took place near Coventry which, as Pope Benedict mentioned in his homily, suffered from the blitz of November 14, 1940 (there were earlier raids in July and August of that . . . . Continue Reading »
Fr. James Martin notes Newman’s unusual feast day, the anniversary not of Newman’s “entrance into Heaven,” but of his entrance into, as Newman himself put it, “the Church of Christ.” A convert from Anglicanism myself, I find the emphasis on Newman’s . . . . Continue Reading »
This had to be annoying to more than a few people in the Church of England (again to the bishops): The other matter I touched upon in February with the Bishops of England and Wales, when I asked you to be generous in implementing the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus . This should be . . . . Continue Reading »
We have the courage—we pray for the courage—to be Catholic, as our friend George Weigel might paraphrase it. More from the Holy Father today in his bishops’ meeting : As we reflect on the human frailty that these tragic events so starkly reveal, we are reminded that, if we are to be . . . . Continue Reading »
The pope really doesn’t miss a beat. In his meeting with the bishops Sunday he said : Since your visit to Rome, political changes in the United Kingdom have focused attention on the consequences of the financial crisis, which has caused so much hardship to countless individuals and families. . . . . Continue Reading »
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