Authority is an issue that occupies a central place in current ecumenical discussion among the churches and it is one of enormous social and political importance as well. Accordingly, while the arguments that follow are directed most particularly to the question of authority in the churches, they . . . . Continue Reading »
We kept building our steeples higher until emissions streamed to thousands of miles away, but distant lakes spit up frogspawn & . . . . Continue Reading »
Of the several paths that lead to virtue, the broadest and the most promising is the way of imitation. By observing the lives of holy men and women and imitating their deeds we become virtuous. Before we can become doers we first must be spectators. Origen, the fecund Christian teacher from ancient . . . . Continue Reading »
Readers of the New York Times, which Alasdair MacIntyre has called “that parish magazine of affluent and self-congratulatory liberal enlightenment,” will have noticed the appearance on its op-ed pages of a relatively new genre of sermonizing. The burden of the preachers (who include, but . . . . Continue Reading »
Saddam Hussein’s invasion and annexation of Kuwait may have thrown the world economy into confusion, but it has revived one flagging and undeniably American industry: dispensationalist pop-apocalyptic. Largely under the influence of former steamboat captain Hal Lindsey, a large sector of American . . . . Continue Reading »
It has become commonplace in the last year or so to refer to “the end of the Cold War” and the “collapse of Communism.” Sometimes it is even noted—by people concerned more with accuracy than etiquette—that America and the West won the Cold War. But the end of the Cold War, our . . . . Continue Reading »
In Tennessee Williams’ The Night of the Iguana the dissolute but not, he emphatically insists, officially “defrocked” Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon has been “collecting evidence . . . of man’s inhumanity to God.” When asked what he means by that. Shannon indicates that he refers to the . . . . Continue Reading »
Catholics in America have rarely taken the study of their history seriously. My own educational circumstances, which were hardly unique, may illustrate the point. In nineteen years (1956-75) of a generally excellent Catholic education in church-sponsored schools and seminaries, I never once was . . . . Continue Reading »
The Jesuits and the Third Reich by vincent a. lapomarda, s. j. the edwin mellen press, 375 pages, $39.95 At the beginning of this valuable study, Vincent A. Lapomarda, who is Curator of the Hiatt Collection of Holocaust Materials at Holy Cross College, allows that Catholics have not recounted . . . . Continue Reading »
The orthodox explanation of what is wrong with creationism goes something like this: Science has accumulated overwhelming evidence for evolution. Although there are controversies among scientists regarding the precise mechanism of evolution, and Darwin’s particular theory of natural selection may . . . . Continue Reading »
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