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Pearce: Teen Magazines and Gangsta Culture

A recent news story from England highlights the sickness at the very core of our “liberated” society. It seems that a 21-year-old Canadian man had contacted young girls in the English county of Kent, via the Internet, and had managed to persuade several of them to commit sex acts live in . . . . Continue Reading »

WJS: The Two Greatest Threats

There are two great evils against which our generation has been called upon to contest. The first is the threat of Islamo-fascist terrorism, a struggle that has grown increasingly intense since the atrocity of September 11. The second is an issue of law, ethics, and morality, and is nothing less . . . . Continue Reading »

Novak on Happy Danes

A new survey of 178 nations by the University of Leicester in England reports that the Danes are the happiest people in the world, followed by the Swiss, Austrians, and Icelanders, etc. Happiness is correlated with wealth and education, the study suggests. “Here we have social security, so . . . . Continue Reading »

Wesley J. Smith: Relativizing human life

Like Fr. Oakes , I am intrigued by the pope’s warnings against “the dictatorship of relativism”¯for relativism poses a far more profound problem than behavioral license. The value of human life itself is being relativized. Indeed, it strikes me that the most crucial question . . . . Continue Reading »

Thoroughly Modern Modigliani

Those visiting England between now and October 15 will have the opportunity to visit an exhibition, at the Royal Academy, of works by the Italian-born artist Amedeo Modigliani. One of the prodigies of Eliot’s Wasteland generation, Modigliani died, as he had lived, in sordid squalor. Having . . . . Continue Reading »

CA: Episcopal disintegration

Back in early July, right after the Episcopal Church USA finished its general convention, declining to “repent”—as requested by the Archbishop of Canterbury—of its confirmation of the openly gay, openly cohabitating V. Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire, I wrote an . . . . Continue Reading »

JB: Big Brother is watching your womb

"The path to prison starts at conception," explains Kaye McLaren , a researcher helping New Zealand investigate its crime problem. And so, she—along with the nation’s top Youth Court judge and its Children’s Commissioner—propose setting up national databases of (1) . . . . Continue Reading »

ML: B16 and liturgical music

In one form or another, the headlines all read, "Pope Forbids Guitars" (although my favorite variation appeared in the Irish News : "Pope’s Rock Rap Hits Just the Right Chord"). But Benedict XVI didn’t really ban guitars, or any other instrument. He just urged that . . . . Continue Reading »

Stephen Webb: The Academic Left

Cultural studies, postcolonialism, and postmodernity have so completely corrupted higher education that one wonders if their infiltration of English departments beginning some twenty years ago was a right-wing plot. The unreadable jargon, coupled with a seamless blend of utopianism and cynicism, . . . . Continue Reading »

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