Incredible as it might seem, the Disney studios are to be congratulated for their moral rectitude. Allow me to explain. Having finally succumbed to renting the DVD of the animated feature film The Incredibles , I was stunned at how good it was. I don’t mean good in the technical or artistic . . . . Continue Reading »
Wasn’t it Tip O’Neal who said that all politics are local? Well, we recently had our elections here in Rutherford County , and it’s humbling and sad all at the same time¯humbling to see the number of folks who give themselves selfishly to causes they believe in, humbling to . . . . Continue Reading »
The British have arrested Muslim terrorists, and once again, soul-searching is very much in evidence. "Why," I hear asked, "are those born among us turning against us?" High unemployment, social isolation, anti-Muslim prejudice¯the standard explanations are canvassed. They . . . . Continue Reading »
I don’t mean to go on about death. After all, this is supposed to be First Things, not Last Things. But I wanted to add something to Prof. Miller’s post , with which, as far as the Catholic moral philosophy goes, I am in complete agreement. Unlike Miller, I am less worried that the . . . . Continue Reading »
Further to my post about marriage and cohabitation , it is interesting that the subject was debated at length at a recent meeting of the Church of England’s General Synod. The bishop of Winchester, the Rt. Rev. Michael Scott-Joynt , complained that marriage was being "airbrushed" . . . . Continue Reading »
Charlotte, you may like the Commonweal crowd, even while you were criticizing their pages . For that matter, I like them; the editor, Paul Baumann, in particular, has always seemed a great guy to go get a drink with. But you need to remember that they hate you¯and me and everybody associated . . . . Continue Reading »
The New York Times ran a story Sunday about Abruzzi , the mountainous region east of Rome and as far north as you can go and still be in the South of Italy. Reading this brought back stories my father used to tell me, of growing up among those mountains, of working the family farm, of the . . . . Continue Reading »
(This post was written by Robert P. George and Patrick Lee.) We have been following with interest and pleasure the exchange between Claire V. McCusker and Robert T. Miller concerning Bodies: The Exhibition . It is heartening to listen in to a debate between two such intellectually gifted and . . . . Continue Reading »
R.R. Reno recently wrote here (I tried to come up with another "r" word instead of an "h" but got stumped) about Andres Serrano’s famous photograph of a crucifix submerged in a jar of urine. The photograph has a name, but it’s rather impious, and Puritan that I am I . . . . Continue Reading »
I like Commonweal Catholics, even though I don’t always agree with them. They’re smart, they’re often very funny, and several have been very good friends to me. At the top of my list is Luke Timothy Johnson. He’s liberal enough in the Commonweal fashion: a laicized priest now . . . . Continue Reading »