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A Catholic Murder in Latin America

The atmosphere of the reporting on the scandals, and the reaction to that reporting, has been much in my mind . So what am I to make of this? Over at the CNN website, there’s a sad news story about the murder of an American priest, Fr. Esteban Woods, in Venezuela. And though the story . . . . Continue Reading »

Together for the Icons?

At the biennial Reformed gathering known as Together for the Gospel, Dr. J. Ligon Duncan asked Did the Fathers Know the Gospel? (hat tip: Justin). Rev. Duncan’s answer was an emphatic Yes.  “These are our people,” he asserted, proceeding to cite, nay, perform stirring passages . . . . Continue Reading »

The Value of Catechism

Michael Ives maintains a blog called “West Port Experiment.” It caught my eye some time back because of the emphasis on parish ministry. The title of his blog comes from the work of Dr. Thomas Chalmers, who tried to implement a parish model of church ministry in one of the worst slums of . . . . Continue Reading »

Demographics and the Scandal

In addition to Ken Woodward’s fine piece on the reporting of the Church scandals, there comes Philip Jenkins’ fascinating relating of demographics to the reaction in Europe : Most evidence suggests that the Church will endure and even enjoy a historic boom—just not in places it has . . . . Continue Reading »

Re: Empire Beats Godfather

David : I thought the list was actually pretty good, though I agree that the order is ridiculous. Here is how I would rank those films: 1. The Godfather Part II (1974) 2. Toy Story 2 (1999) 3. The Dark Knight (2008) 4. Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) 5. Terminator 2 (1991) 6. . . . . Continue Reading »

Be Careful What You Wish For

Over at Reason , Andrew Potter has a fine piece about the tenth anniversary of Naomi Klein’s book No Logo . The book was intended to be an unsparing attack on branding and consumerism—and instead (as the always useful Arts & Letters Daily puts it) the book “became a research bible . . . . Continue Reading »

Mojave Cross

I wanted to say something about the legal case of the Mojave Cross , which has now been decided by the Supreme Court as not a violation of the establishment clause. But I couldn’t, for the life of me, draw any conclusion from the incredible mishmash of the opinions. This particular cross is . . . . Continue Reading »

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