So my friend Carl Scott sent me an email asking if he could contribute a reflection on the Porcher-Pomo debate that is a bit long for a normal comment on the thread below. I usually wouldn’t do this but it’s so good—especially when it criticizes ME—that . . . . Continue Reading »
In Chapter 1, paragraphs 10 through 20, Benedict takes up Paul VI’s forty-year-old encyclical letter, Populorum Progressio . George Weigel notes the long hunger among some more left-leaning Catholics to revive Paul VI’s work and pit it against the economics implied in John Paul II’s . . . . Continue Reading »
I’ve been good for very little lately, distracted by an upper-respiratory-tract virus that conjures new symptoms with which to persecute me every day. This afternoon I found myself turning on the TV around the time that the memorial event for Michael Jackson was getting underway. I . . . . Continue Reading »
It’s not that the media is ignoring the story , Jody, its just that there are so many more important subjects to report on. For example, according to Google the number of news stories posted between yesterday and today on Pope Benedict almost reaches two hundred (see chart below) while . . . . Continue Reading »
Hmm. Looks like I was wrong in my prediction that the American media would ignore the new encyclical in favor of stories about President Obama’s visit with the pope. Turns out the media isn’t even waiting for the president’s trip to Rome in order to ignore the encyclical. Here’s . . . . Continue Reading »
The website of Fathers for Good—an initiative for men by the Knights of Columbus—has posted a video of Princeton professor Robert George discussing fatherhood, marriage, and family life. Professor George also has a new article, “What Marriage Is—And What It Isn’t”, . . . . Continue Reading »
Theory must rule practice, and yet it cannot. Thinking is called to assume and to represent Being, but thinking is always preceded and exceeded by Being. This very excess of Being with respect to thinking – transcendence —- reason necessarily configures along two axes of significance or . . . . Continue Reading »
A friend writes to note the line in paragraph 29 of Caritas in Veritate : “Violence puts the brakes on authentic development and impedes the evolution of peoples towards greater socio-economic and spiritual well-being.” Does this mark, he asks, an advance in the neo-Latin of the Vatican? . . . . Continue Reading »
The surprise of the encyclical is the praise of Paul VI, whose “ Populorum Progressio deserves to be considered ‘the Rerum Novarum of the present age,’ shedding light upon humanity’s journey towards unity.” Love in truth, says Benedict, “is a great challenge for the . . . . Continue Reading »
Three encyclicals already with Caritas in their title. It looks like the Pope is bidding fair to become “the Pope of Caritapolis,” who sees the whole world—in all its cultural, political, and cultural dimensions—as to be best grasped within the long history of “The City . . . . Continue Reading »
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