Imagine an organization”a bowling league, say, formed by a group of people who get together simply because they like to bowl. And imagine that, over time, the demands and rewards of being the organizers of a bowling league begin to grow, particularly as the members are drawn into organizing leagues for other sports … Continue Reading »
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a column in which I took exception”humorously, I thought”to the popular American conceit of describing ours as the “greatest nation on Earth” (I proposed Bhutan as a worthier claimant to that title, though I had also toyed with arguing the case for Norway, New Zealand, or Fiji)… . Continue Reading »
Edmund Gosse’s books are lovely to read but eminently forgettable. A winsome writer, fine stylist, poets of sorts, essayist, and arbiter of taste in the early decades of the twentieth century, he flourished at the center of London literary circles, and was eventually knighted for his cultural contributions… . Continue Reading »
“With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has always been developed from the mind of lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy,” wrote Charles Darwin… . Continue Reading »
Last Friday, September 24, the archbishop of Denver, Charles J. Chaput, gave a talk to a conference of the Religion Newswriters Association. Called “Religion, Journalism, and the New American Orthodoxy,” it was an intelligent and sophisticated analysis”and really, quite uncontroversial in its conclusion, although you wouldn’t know that from the response of the religion reporters who were present… . Continue Reading »
Some years ago, I was invited to address a seminar at the Palace of Westminster for members of the House of Lords and House of Commons interested in Catholic social doctrine. The seminar was advertised in the daily schedules of both houses of Parliament … Continue Reading »
In the mid-1970s, asked about her move from an updated habit to ordinary clothing, the teaching sister who ran our parish CCD program declared that the shedding of religious habits was a good thing because it emphasized that sisters were “nothing special, that we are all special in God’s eyes.” … Continue Reading »
Valerie Tarico, Ph.D., has a new book out, Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light. Or maybe it’s a reprint of her old book, The Dark Side: How Evangelical Teachings Corrupt Love and Truth. It’s hard to tell. Once an author starts down the road of making a living off being a “former something-or-other,” everything begins to sound the same… . Continue Reading »
Maybe Woody Allen’s films once were funny. Now it’s as if he’s trying to spread his personal chronic sickness of anhedonia”that inability to enjoy what should naturally be pleasurable which has been a recurring theme in his work since Annie Hall”to his few remaining fans. If his latest film is any indication, it’s working… . Continue Reading »
It is a bad sign when the head of a Catholic college’s theology department ends an interview by calling Pope Benedict an Austrian. Father Mark Massa rewrote the pope’s biography in an interview with the Religion News Service, which talked to him about his book The American Catholic Revolution: How the ’60s Changed the Church Forever… . Continue Reading »
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