R. R. Reno

Fr. Timothy Lannon, President of Creighton University, my former employer, has announced that starting in 2015 the school will provide benefits to legally married same-sex spouses. Most Jesuit universities already do so, as will Notre Dame, which recently announced its new policy that also will take effect in 2015. Continue Reading »

“Yes means yes.” That’s the slogan promoting the new California guidelines regarding sexual assault on college and university campuses. The policy requires affirmative assent, and it’s designed to supplant less stringent school standards that define sexual assault as unwanted advances . . . . Continue Reading »

•Catesby Leigh’s analysis of the 9/11 complex in downtown Manhattan (“A Memorial to Forget”) explains how our impoverished cultural vocabulary for memorialization leads to a documentary mentality. We don’t know how to remember, and so we default to recording. In an . . . . Continue Reading »

Two stories have been in circulation. One concerns a subpoena issued in Houston demanding all sermons and memoranda that touch on homosexuality from a group of pastors. The other involves Donald and Evelyn Knapp. Ordained ministers of the Four Square Church, they run the Hitching Post Wedding Chapel in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Local officials have informed them that anti-discrimination laws require them to perform same-sex weddings. 
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The Extraordinary Synod on the Family issued an interim “relatio” yesterday. This is a document meant to sum up the current state of discussion among the gathered bishops. George Weigel has written a definitive refutation of the media’s spin, which, predictably, interprets every sane (and commonplace) pastoral observation about the need for the Church to welcome sinners and accompany them in their efforts to seek sanctity as a sea change in Catholic teaching on sex and marriage. Continue Reading »

I first read Thérèse of Lisieux when on retreat half a dozen years ago. The effect on me was significant. I thought of it today, the memorial of St. Thérèse. Continue Reading »

• I love the way the New York Times does parody. It’s so marvelously deadpan. Mark Bittman dishes up a particularly savory instance in the editorial pages: “Most of us can eat real and healthier food easily enough, and, as it happens, growing such food tends to be more sustainable. . . . . Continue Reading »

The New New Left We’re heading toward a meritocratic, libertarian-tilting consensus in America. That’s my reading of a large-scale survey of political and social views by the Pew Research Center, “Beyond Red vs. Blue: The Political Typology.” The report’s authors are more tentative. They . . . . Continue Reading »

The New York Times titled its article, “In Weddings, Pope Looks Past Tradition.” The Wall Street Journal announced that the pope’s presiding over twenty weddings at St. Peter’s on Sunday indicates his desire for a more “open and inclusive church.” CBS News called the mass ceremony “progressive.” 
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Yesterday Mark Regnerus reported on American beliefs about the resurrection of the dead. It’s not a universal belief among regular churchgoing Christians. That might be because it’s not a well understood Christian doctrine. Continue Reading »