Matthew Schmitz

Citing a shortage of swordsmen, Saudi Arabia is considering performing executions using firing squads instead of public beheadings : A joint Saudi committee composed of representatives of the ministries of interior, justice and health is mulling the replacement of beheading with firing squads for . . . . Continue Reading »

Younger American Catholics express slightly more real agreement with Church teaching and slightly less respect for its shepherds in a new poll by the  New York Times /CBS News. Women’s ordination was favored by 72 percent of Catholics between 45 and 64 and 68 percent of Catholics between . . . . Continue Reading »

As the  New York Times  has reported , the Obama administration’s drone policy assumes that women, children, and the elderly are civilians but “in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there . . . . Continue Reading »

Humor magazine McSweeney’s posts a satirical cover letter for the world’s most discussed job opening: Dear sir or madam, I am writing to apply for the position of Pope. I recently received my Bachelor of Arts, or “artium baccalaureus,” from Dartmouth College, with a major . . . . Continue Reading »

Standing before all of Hollywood at last night’s Academy Awards, confronted by an inquisitorial teddy bear, Mark Wahlberg refused to deny his Lord and savior: Ted: “You’ve got a ‘berg’ on the end of your name. Are you Jewish?” Mark Wahlberg: “No, . . . . Continue Reading »

The Bulgarian Orthodox Church elects Metropolitan Neophyte—-like most of the church’s leaders, a former Communist agent—- as its patriarch : His reputation as one of the most deserving candidates for the patriarchal throne risked being marred last year after revelations that he . . . . Continue Reading »

So say philosophy professors Pierre Dulau and Martin Steffens in a dismayed article for  La Croix , the semi-official paper of French Catholicism: Whatever may be the justifications we may give to this decision, the fact is there: this resignation by the pope is a catastrophe. It is an event . . . . Continue Reading »

Benedict XVI’s efforts to support the Church in China were “wasted by others close to him,” says emeritus bishop of Hong Kong  Cardinal Joseph Zen : This Pope has done things that for China that he has not done for any other country: to no other particular Church has he . . . . Continue Reading »

Should the next pope be a nun? a group of nuns? a non-Catholic? David Mills picks apart the refrains that have typified much of the press coverage of Benedict in a column for the Pittsburgh Catholic : Some of these supposed experts just get things wrong, like the television reporter who solemnly . . . . Continue Reading »

From Charles Dickens’ essay “Philadelphia, and Its Solitary Prison,” quoted today in the Washington Post by George Will : In the outskirts, stands a great prison, called the Eastern Penitentiary: conducted on a plan peculiar to the state of Pennsylvania. The system here, is rigid, . . . . Continue Reading »