Pontifications

Recently in Church Category

Sunday August 2, 2009

Moving on, and many, many thanks...

So...my recent vacation and related absences also coincided with an offer from PoliticsDaily.com to cover religion for them, as editor Melinda Henneberger announces here in her roundup on the site's very successful first 100 days. 

That means, in short, that I'll have to sign off from blogging here at Beliefnet after nearly a year and a half of a very rewarding time. This was my first opportunity as a blogger, something that was new for me and challenging--in terms of the commitment, the style of writing, and, yes, keeping up with the feedback and trying to digest it all. 

But the traffic grew steadily from a standing start to a very healthy level, and I regret having to leave off. But there are so many fine options at Beliefnet, including Amy Welborn's Via Media, which has been going like gangbusters for the past few months. 

And of course I'll welcome any and all of your comments at PoliticsDaily. Not all of you will be in agreement (or even charitable--or is that an understatement?!). But I have honestly appreciated the feedback, and, yes, learned from it. And I hope it has been a reciprocal experience at some points. 

So thanks to the faithful, friends and foes. Arrivederci a tutti

Thursday July 16, 2009

Calvin at 500, Calvinism 2.0

Jean Cauvin.jpgIf you thought you knew John Calvin--who turned 500 last week--you probably don't know enough. For example, that he was French, born Jean Cauvin. And if he was in fact scandalized by dancing, he was also a lot more complex than that. I explored the new look Calvin in an essay at PoliticsDaily, "Patron Saint of the Recession."

So can anything rescue Calvin from his reputation? Some big names are giving it a good shot. Marilynne Robinson, whose 2004 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "Home," is one of the most convincing portraits ever of a Congregational pastor, spends a good deal of time in her essay collection, "The Death of Adam," trying to rehabilitate Calvin, and doing an admirable job. And a spate of new books timed for the anniversary includes works that highlight Calvin's pastoral side, and one, from Princeton Seminary professor William Stacy Johnson, that calls Calvin a "Reformer for the 21st Century." Biblical scholar Roland Boer weighs in with perhaps the most provocative thesis, arguing in "Political Grace: The Revolutionary Theology of John Calvin," that Calvin was at heart a political radical, not a conservative.

Read the rest here...

Friday July 10, 2009

Signs of the times: Obama's eye

Obama's eyes.jpgYes, this photo of Obama ostensibly eyeing a young woman (apparently a 17-year-old delegate from Brazil--where are her parents?!) at the G-8 Summit is the hottest Google search item. And of course the question of what Obama was thinking is a leading Fox News story.

So it goes, even as the leaders try to address such minor topics as climate change and world hunger.

God knows Sarkozy, that ol' chien, seems to be leering--quelle surprise, eh? Obama could plausibly be looking elsewhere. Still not quite to the level of, say, Mark Sanford or John Ensign, I think. I confess I'd have looked, if only for the definite "wow" factor the young woman was likely going for.

I was also struck by an odd coincidences, in that as this story popped over the transom I was lifting bits out of Bruce Gordon's grand new bio of John Calvin for a piece on Calvin's 500th birthday, which is today. Gordon tries to dispel some of the myths of Calvin as "an unyielding, moralistic and stone-faced tyrant who rejected all the pleasures of life." And he writes that in his correspondence Calvin "could let drop a line that indicated an eye for beautiful buildings and a well-dressed woman."

Well, Jean Cauvin was French, you know.

Anyway, maybe a shot of Barack with Benedict--should be coming soon--will displace the Girl from Impanema. But don't bet on it.

Friday July 10, 2009

The Pope and the Prez: Together again for the first time

The meeting between the spiritual and political leaders is on shortly. Which one is spiritual, which political? Obama has invoked Jesus more than Bush did, at this point. And with his pointed encyclical on the economy this week, Benedict ruffled some political feathers.

But the meeting at the Vatican this afternoon is fraught for Catholic conservatives in this country, as I explain in this PoliticsDaily piece:

Perhaps the only good news for conservatives was White House spokesman Robert Gibbs' preemptive declaration that Obama would not be joining a church in Italy during his visit. Gibbs was joking of course, but not everyone is laughing.
 
So can a photo-op at the Vatican change the political dynamic in Washington?
 
Generally speaking, that would be a stretch. But in reality there's much more going on than a friendly handshake. Ever since Obama was elected, in fact, church officials in Rome have signaled a much greater and much more public openness to Obama than church leaders in the United States. Indeed, Obama received a telegram of congratulations from Benedict on the day of his election -- "historic," the pope called it -- and the two men later chatted by phone. The Vatican daily, L'Osservatore Romano, has been almost glowing in its coverage of Obama, especially compared to the dim view of Catholic theocons, some of whom have lobbied for the L'Osservatore editor to find a new job.
 
Such an argument would be tougher to make against Cardinal Georges Cottier, who for years was the official theologian to the papal household, meaning he vetted all papal pronouncements for orthodoxy.
 
In a lengthy essay in a prominent Italian Catholic periodical, "30 Giorni," Cardinal Cottier rejects the talking point of Obama as "pro-abortion" and praises his "humble realism" and the president's apparent reflection of the thinking of Saint Thomas Aquinas. High praise indeed. Or, as veteran Vatican-watcher Sandro Magister put it: "Cardinal Cottier seems almost to exalt Obama as a new Constantine, the head of a modern empire that is also generous toward the Church."
 
Read on here...

Thursday July 9, 2009

Are social encyclicals binding?

It is a good question, and an honest question that many may wonder about, both inside and outside the Catholic orbit. I wince at the "social" qualifier," but Joe Carter, a Baptist, poses the questions well at the First Things blog:

If you had asked me as a young Baptist boy to explain the difference between Protestants and Catholics, I would have said that Catholics were the Christians who "have to do what the Pope tells them to do." Now I'm an old Baptist and realize how naive I was. (I'm more likely to agree with the Pope than some American Catholics I know.)

I'm still unclear, though, on where Catholics draw the line of demarcation between complete freedom of conscience and deference to magisterial authority. After all, if a Catholic can support abortion and still receive communion, what is off-limits?

Stephen M. Barr responds with a useful (to my layman's eye) explanation, and this caveat:

I do think that it would be better if Catholics were not so disposed to pick these documents apart like an English teacher grading a student paper. A little more obsequium would be nice, even as we recognize that not everything in these documents is of equal weight.

I wonder if Jody Bottum, who is diligently deconstructing and re-writing Caritas in Veritate in a series on posts, caught that monito.

I very much like the writings of Richard Gaillardetz on authority, but I'd welcome other amplifications. Of course any concession to different levels of authority opens the gate to the slippery slope to dreaded cafeteria Catholicism. But it's interesting to see many who would confer the status of near-infallibility on lesser papal statements they like now pick apart a major statement they don't like quite so much. So say we all, eh.

Wednesday July 8, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , History, Politics

Obama's faith-based administration?

The president today nominated Dr. Francis S. Collins as head of the National Institutes of Health. Uh-oh: There are two basic objections to Dr. Collins. The first is his very public embrace of religion. He wrote a book called "The...

Wednesday July 8, 2009

George Weigel and the (Curial) Chamber of Secrets!

Parody is hard, but over at Vox Nova, Morning's Minion nails it with this "fabulous" version of George Weigel's red-pencil deconstruction of the encyclical. A taste: Justice and Peace was angry. Very angry. Skulking in the darkest corners of...

Wednesday July 8, 2009

Roma locuta: Is anyone listening?

Is the pope's new encyclical on economics and social justice the proverbial tree falling in the unpopulated forest? That's the question I pose in my follow-up at PoliticsDaily on what, if any, impact Caritas Veritatis might have. An excerpt: This...

Wednesday July 8, 2009

Pope Benedict: Liberal, schmiberal!

At Mirror of Justice, Rick Garnett has a good critique of my "Pope is a Liberal" piece: No doubt, the Pope's views on many questions regarding the organization and regulation of the economy put him well to the "left" of the American...

Tuesday July 7, 2009

Encyclical upshot: Is the Pope a liberal?

That's the question I pose, and try to answer, in this essay at PoliticsDaily: But what is clear, whether one reads every word or just excerpts, is that the pope is a liberal, at least in American political terms....

Tuesday July 7, 2009

Benedict's "word cloud"

The folks at CNS put together an awesome "word cloud" of Caritas in Veritate to get to the heart of the matter. Sometimes a graphic is worth a thousand words, or in the case of this encyclical, 30,000....

Tuesday July 7, 2009

Text of the encyclical, "Caritas in Veritate"

Here, in an easily searched version. Analysis and excerpts to come. ENCYCLICAL LETTERCARITAS IN VERITATEOF THE SUPREME PONTIFFBENEDICT XVITO THE BISHOPSPRIESTS AND DEACONSMEN AND WOMEN RELIGIOUSTHE LAY FAITHFULAND ALL PEOPLE OF GOOD WILLON INTEGRAL HUMAN DEVELOPMENTIN CHARITY AND TRUTH  INTRODUCTION...

Monday July 6, 2009

Vatican runs a deficit

The Vatican City State reported a deficit of $22 million for 2008 as a consequence of the "global economic-financial crisis," RNS reports. Maybe Obama can offer a stimulus package when he meets the Holy Father on Friday? Or will tomorrow's...

Monday July 6, 2009

Commonweal editor on Obama meeting

Paul Baumann, editor of Commonweal and participant at last week's Roosevelt (that'd be TR) Room confab with the current POTUS in the White House, weighs in with the real deal on what went down in his essay, "Yes, Mr. President":...

Sunday July 5, 2009

Kudos to Christiansen

The editor of America, Drew Christiansen, SJ, has a knockdown post on last week's meeting between Obama and select members of the Catholic press (and one WaPo religion writer). It's a particular examen of the profession and the church rather than Obama....

Sunday July 5, 2009

Model priests, long lives, short shrift

Speaking of priests-as-monks...Boston radio station WBUR has this grim news for the priests there: BOSTON -- The Boston Archdiocese has admitted that, within two years, it won't have the money to pay for the care and housing of its elderly...

Sunday July 5, 2009

Contraindication: Papal honor for abusive prelate

Pope Benedict has to his credit always been brutally frank about his disgust over sexually abusive clergy, and in his talks for this year for the Priest he has made the personal holiness of clergy a touchstone. Remember his Way of...

Sunday July 5, 2009

BREAKING: Nuns investigate Vatican!

Okay, that's a joke. Actually, it's the other way around. (You knew that, right?) But friends in the religious community have suggested that turning the tables might not be a bad idea. The reason for the asperity is set...

Saturday July 4, 2009

"Freedom and Catholicism"

That is the title of Michael Sean Winters' fascinating essay at NCR on Cardinal Gibbons' 1887 sermon delivered in Rome at Santa Maria in Trastevere (my old neighborhood church, alas). The ocassion was the consistory elevating Gibbons, of Baltimore,...

Thursday July 2, 2009

Bernardin and Obama and "Common Ground" (UPDATE)

The current president has cited the late cardinal before, most recently in his speech at Notre Dame: "He was a kind and good and wise man," Barack Obama said then of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin. "A saintly man." And the "Common...

Thursday July 2, 2009

Karl Malden, beloved actor--and pastor, of sorts...

Like too many people, I suspect, I never watched "On the Waterfront" straight through until well into adulthood. And probably just as well, because I could appreciate it--and the labor priest and activist Fr. Pete Barry, played by Karl...

Wednesday July 1, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , Pop Culture

Farrah's funeral mass

It took place at Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral in Los Angeles on Tuesday, and seemed to represent everything about Farrah Fawcett, and the Catholic imagination--if you can imagine that combo. I can, or I would like to....

Wednesday July 1, 2009

Categories: Bishops, Catholic, Church , History, Pope

Priest pushback on Pope letter?

Benedict XVI's rather pious letter opening the Year for Priests is beginning to elicit some reactions--diplomatic but also clearly stating that the pontiff's invocation of the Cure' d'Ars as a model priest may not be terribly relevant for working priests today....

Tuesday June 30, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , History, Politics

Obama's abortion reduction packaging

The debate over the President's "common ground" approach is focusing on two aspects: reducing abortion by supporting pregnant women, and reducing unintended preganancies by promoting sex ed and contraception. With the package of legislation having been hashed over, the...

Monday June 29, 2009

Year of St. Paul ends with revelations...

First, Benedict XVI confirms that tests done on bone fragments from a tomb venerated as that of the Apostle--but often considered more legend than fact--belonged to a man who lived between the first and second century. "This seems to confirm...

Monday June 29, 2009

Obama's new church: St. Elsewhere's?

Or St. Nowhere's? In a report disputed by the White House, TIME's Amy Sullivan writes that the much-anticipated decision on where the Obama's would worship has been settled, and instead of joining a congregation in Washington, Obama will do like W. and...

Monday June 29, 2009

Nixon on Catholics: "Split down the middle"

And that was back in 1973! Another fascinating bit of transcription from recently-released tapes of conversations between Nixon and Billy Graham, this time focusing on Nixon's take on Catholics of the day. At America magazine's blog, Jim Martin has...

Friday June 26, 2009

Michael Jackson...Pop theologian?

Anthea Butler makes the case at ReligionDispatches: We loved the music, but the trash sold much more. Yet, for all of the crass tabloid fodder, Michael was his best when singing these hopeful songs that called listeners to become better...

Friday June 26, 2009

Categories: Church , History, Pop Culture

Michael Jackson's faith

The pop icon was raised a Jehovah's Witness, but according to some accounts had been "disfellowshipped" for various infractions. Last fall it was reported that Jackson had become a Muslim and changed his name to Mikaeel: The 50-year-old singer, who...

Friday June 26, 2009

Categories: Church , History, Pop Culture

Michael Jackson, tortured genius

Sad life, sad death--great music. So much people are saying, but the music says it best. YouTube has a site dedicated to his videos here, and it's interesting that the most popular ones are of a later vintage. Many are superb....

Thursday June 25, 2009

Farrah Fawcett, RIP

The actress who began as everyone's favorite pinup (mine, too--I'm of that vintage) has died after a long and public battle with cancer. Hers was a remarkable journey, really, from those blow-dry feathered hairdos to really superb acting roles to the latest...

Wednesday June 24, 2009

Sarah Palin: Last (wo)man standing?

Now that the GOP hopefuls are flaming out, is Sarah the saviour? A new Pew poll shows Palin well ahead of Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich among Republicans, with 73 percent favoring her as opposed to 57 and 55...

Wednesday June 24, 2009

GOP infidelity month: Gov. Mark Sanford

From the "Department of What Was He Thinking?!" here comes South Carolina's Republican governor and a GOP hopeful for president, admitting that his five-day off-the-radar escapade was to visit his Argentine lover--not to hike the Appalachian Trail, as aides said....

Wednesday June 24, 2009

Notre Dame's fundraising: Thank you, Obama?

As part of the protests over Barack Obama's appearance at Notre Dame, one alum, David DiFranco, launched a website to get ND pres Father John Jenkins fired and to tally donations withheld from the university as a way of quantifying...

Wednesday June 24, 2009

Benedict XVI and Barack Obama

Together again, for the first time, on July 10: VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI will welcome U.S. President Barack Obama to the Vatican July 10 for an audience scheduled to begin at 4 p.m.Obama will visit Italy July...

Wednesday June 24, 2009

Was Nixon anti-abortion?

Well, sort of. Newly released tapes show that in the wake of the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, Tricky Dick worried that legalized abortion would lead to "permissiveness," and said that "it breaks the family." But he also saw abortion as...

Tuesday June 23, 2009

Is Neda a martyr?

The simplest answer to that question is "yes." Neda Agha-Soltan died terribly and publicly while at a protest for freedom against a repressive regime. Her story has spun around the globe, drawing broad support and rallying the reform cause...

Tuesday June 23, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , History, Politics

The Christian Right channels Obama

First it was Focus on the Family's new CEO saying he wanted to "see more families like Obama's," and now it is Ralph Reed invoking the President as a role model of sorts. Reed, the wunderkind behind the Christian...

Tuesday June 23, 2009

Banning burqas: France's secular dogmatism

French president Nicholas Sarkozy wants to ban burqas--the head-to-toe covering worn by some very conservative Muslim women. The burqa, he says, is a symbol of "enslavement," adding: "I want to say solemnly that it will not be welcome on our territory."...

Monday June 22, 2009

The Bishops according to Bill

William Donohue, the outspoken head of the right-tilting Catholic League, has a neat thumbnail sketch of the politics of the bishops conference. It is contained in an email message he sent to USNews' Dan Gilgoff, apropos of Dan's post arguing...

Monday June 22, 2009

Was Pius XII a saint? More Jewish-Catholic tensions

The canonization process for the wartime pontiff is an ongoing source of drama--and tension. The latest dust-up concerns remarks by Fr. Peter Gumpel, the Jesuit promoter for Pius' cause for sainthood, who blamed Jewish pressure for the delay in the controversial...

Sunday June 21, 2009

Happy Father's Day! Here's what you missed...

No doubt you Dads got wonderful gifts and lots of love, but will any of you smell like a Holy Father? You could if the family had thought to buy Fred Hass' private formula, The Pope's Cologne, the recreation of...

Saturday June 20, 2009

Promoting fatherhood: Obama's family values

If the new Focus on the Family CEO loved Obama's family values a few days ago, how much more will he love him now that he's pushing so strongly for responsible fathers? "When fathers are absent, when they abandon their...

Saturday June 20, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , History, Politics

Ken Starr (hearts) Sonia Sotomayor

From the WaPo, via dotCommonweal: Kenneth W. Starr - investigator of President Bill Clinton and longtime pillar of the conservative legal establishment - has endorsed President Obama's choice for the Supreme Court. During a question-and-answer session after a speech Thursday...

Friday June 19, 2009

"Hell-raiser in a collar"

That's how this Plain-Dealer profile describes the Rev. Bob Begin, Cleveland's "rebel priest," who has grown savvier as he has grown older, but still with the same zeal on behalf of his flock. The story focuses on Begin's campaign to fight Bishop...

Thursday June 18, 2009

"We want to see more families like Barack Obama's."

Who said it? Not Focus on the Family's old lion of the religious right, but his successor as CEO, Jim Daly. (Pictured at right in a Denver Post photo.) As the Denver Post reports (via Dan Gilgoff at US News), Daly's...

Thursday June 18, 2009

Pope to clergy: "After God, the priest is everything!"

Benedict XVI, in his letter today proclaiming a "Year for Priests," puts forth Saint Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney--the Cure' d'Ars--as the model, since this year is also the 150th anniversary of the death of that remarkable French pastor. On the other hand, centering the...

Wednesday June 17, 2009

Osservatore editor stands by Obama comments

The editor of the Vatican daily has taken a lot of heat for his coverage of Barack Obama and his comments that Obama is "not a pro-abortion president." In a lengthy Q-and-A with Delia Gallagher (a veteran Vatican hand,...

Wednesday June 17, 2009

Notre Dame gets a pass from Bishops

Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson, a Chicago native and in line to be the next president of the U.S. bishops conference, foresees some informal discussions about the Notre Dame-Barack Obama invite flap, but nothing substantive or punitive. I suspect some...

Tuesday June 16, 2009

The Bishops' Dispirited Agenda

That's the title of an "On Faith" column by Tom Reese, the Jesuit political scientist cited in the post below on the bishops spring meeting in Texas. Father Reese's take is that the bishops' agenda "will keep it busy...

Tuesday June 16, 2009

Bishops meet: Leadership from a flock of shepherds

The U.S. hierarchy gathers for its spring meeting tomorrow, in San Antonio, in the wake of one of the most divisive and ugly stretches the Catholic Church has seen since, well, Joseph Bernardin was alive. And the bishops themselves...

Monday June 15, 2009

Decommissioning Latin: Killing a dead language?

Rome should switch from Latin to English, Thomas G. Casey, SJ, argues in this America essay, "Ave atque Vale." Casey, an Irish Jesuit and professor of philosophy at the Gregorian University in Rome, notes that Italian is understandably the Vatican argot, but...

Monday June 15, 2009

Sex selection comes to America

The New York Times reports on apparent evidence of sex selection among Asian immigrants, a cultural holdover from their home countries: The trend is buried deep in United States census data: seemingly minute deviations in the proportion of boys...

Saturday June 13, 2009

Vatican employees: No rest for the...weary?

Q: How many people work at the Vatican? A: About half of them. Ba-da-boom! Only that rimshot was reportedly delivered by Pope John XXIII himself. Though I've never found the citation, it is--as we say at the tabloids--too good to...

Friday June 12, 2009

Internal Vatican grudge match: Who you calling a relativist?

The excommunications surrounding the abortion for a nine-year-old Brazilian girl who was raped and impregnated with twins by her stepfather continues to roil Rome. Back at the time, a top Vatican official, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Academy...

Friday June 12, 2009

Categories: Bishops, Catholic, Church , History, Pope

Quote of the Day, Part II: "Serpentine secularism"

Pope Benedict XVI has a way with words, but also sound bites (who knew?!), from "the dictatorship of relativism" slogan on the eve of the conclave to this formulation from his homily for the Feast of Corpus Christi: "Today there...

Thursday June 11, 2009

Carrie Prejean, Miss California slacker?

Donald Trump has fired her for not fulfilling her duties. How tough is a beauty queen's job? "This was a decision based solely on contract violations," Keith Lewis, the executive director of Miss California USA said in a statement,...

Thursday June 11, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , History, Politics

Who speaks for the GOP?

Rush and Dick and Newt are in a dead heat. No Dubya, no Sarah. Is that good or bad news? Read the USA Today/Gallup survey for more details: Gingrich as the standard-bearer of the Republican religious bloc? He just became...

Wednesday June 10, 2009

SF Catholics facing a Holocaust?

The write-up is from CWNews, via the San Francisco Chronicle: A week after the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the constitutionality of a 2006 San Francisco Board of Supervisors resolution "urging Cardinal William Levada, in his capacity as...

Wednesday June 10, 2009

Tiller's clinic to be anti-abortion museum?

From the NYT: Troy Newman, the president of Operation Rescue, said on Wednesday that his group, which had long fought to close the clinic, was considering trying to buy the squat, beige building to perhaps turn it into a memorial...

Wednesday June 10, 2009

More right-wing violence: Holocaust Museum shooting

An 88-year-old man, James W. von Brunn, who is apparently known as a white supremacist, shot a security guard at the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington this afternoon--near the Smithsonian and across the Mall from the White House. The Washington Post...

Wednesday June 10, 2009

Obama Catholic official: TOO pro-life

That is the judgment of Frances Kissling, she of Catholics for a Free Choice, now rebaptized Catholics for Choice, on the appointment of Alexia Kelley as Director of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships at the Department of Health and Human Services. Kelley...

Wednesday June 10, 2009

A Catholic judge's response

Re the post below on the "problem" with Catholic justices on the Supreme Court...Cathleen Kaveny at dotCommonweal points to a response that Judge John T. Noonan (who gave the Laetare "address" at Notre Dame) provided when he was petitioned to...

Tuesday June 9, 2009

Historian's verdict: Catholic justices can't be trusted

That headline is perhaps too blunt a summation of an argument by the UCLA professor emerita of history, Joyce Appleby--but not by much. In a column in the Tallahassee Democrat, Appleby argues that Sonia Sotomayor's nomination raises concerns because six of nine Supreme Court...

Tuesday June 9, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , History, Politics

Tiller abortion clinic closing permanently

That's the story from Tiller's family, via the laywers. So can the argument be made that suspected killer Scott Roeder's act was effective and perhaps justifiable? The pro-life movement is worried: Even some abortion opponents, who had long devoted their efforts to...

Tuesday June 9, 2009

Barack Obama: Prophet of our civil religion

And he's channeling Abraham Lincoln. At least that's my angle, in a piece at PoliticsDaily titled, "The Gospel According to Barack." Secularists worry that Obama has imbibed Bush's faith-based Kool-Aid, conservatives rail that he's (again) exalting himself as a...

Tuesday June 9, 2009

Douthat's abortion distinctions

Ross Douthat's column in today's Times, "Not all abortions are equal," goes where other Catholic pro-lifers often do not: In arguing that law and policy must make distinctions on abortions, as people do. "The argument for unregulated abortion rests on the...

Monday June 8, 2009

iMessiah 3.0: The Third Coming

Can you take still more sensuality and spirituality from the blog? The third generation of the iPhone is indeed here. The adepts at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco have seen the revelation: The new iPhone 3GS goes on...

Monday June 8, 2009

Eastern erotica for a Monday morning...

Apropos of my earlier post on the death of David Carradine in somewhat ambiguous circumstances in Bangkok comes today's NYT book review: It is on "The East, the West, and Sex: A history of Erotic Encounters" by Richard Bernstein, a...

Monday June 8, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , History

A pastor's lesson in dying, and living

"I'm not busy dying. I'm living better." That's one of several moving takeaways from Michael Paulson's story in The Boston Globe--and brief video below--about Father James A. Field, a parish priest who is dying of pancreatic cancer. Everything about him speaks...

Monday June 8, 2009

Scott Roeder and Osama bin Laden...

The abortion doc killer and the 9/11 "mastermind"...More strange pairings? Maybe not. Bin Laden has been stuck in a cave in Waziristan or thereabouts for a few years, sending out audiotapes of threats periodically when he feels he needs attention--such...

Friday June 5, 2009

David Carradine and Thomas Merton...

Both were well-known Westerners associated with Eastern spiritual traditions, both died accidentally in their rooms in Bangkok. That, it appears from news reports, is where the similarity ends, sadly: BANGKOK, June 5 -- Thai police officers investigating the death of...

Friday June 5, 2009

Vatican steps back on Obama love?

Concerns that the Vatican seems to like President Obama a lot more than the U.S. hierarchy seem to be behind a rowback of sorts as L'Osservatore Romano. As RNS's Francis X. Rocca reports: VATICAN CITY (RNS) The official Vatican newspaper...

Thursday June 4, 2009

Categories: Church , History, Politics

Activist: Tiller killing "biblically justified"

So says the publisher of Prayer and Action News, an anti-abortion newsletter and Web site that slay suspect Scott Roder liked. Dave Leach tells the Des Moines Register that Tiller's murder could be biblically justified as a way to prevent what he...

Thursday June 4, 2009

Be (gay) afraid (gay). Be (gay) very (gay) afraid (gay)...

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council is keeping count: "If, as the saying goes, people are policy, then we have no doubt where this White House stands. At last count, the Obama administration employed 36 open homosexuals." As opposed...

Thursday June 4, 2009

Saint Francis and Obama

And the connection? Islamic Cairo, 800 years ago. My colleague Paul Moses, a religion writer and journalism professor, is set to publish a book about Francis of Assisi's encounter with the sultan of Egypt, Malik al-Kamil, during the Fifth...

Wednesday June 3, 2009

Radicalizing pro-lifers: The line from "Roe" to Randall Terry

Why is anti-abortion violence spiking--with George Tiller's death at the hands of alleged shooter Scott Roeder just the latest and most high-profile episode? Jon A. Shields, an assistant professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and author of an intriguing...

Wednesday June 3, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , History, Politics

Tiller's killing: Necessary...but unlawful?

In a commentary today, First Things editor and Creighton theologian R.R. Reno parses the justifications for killing an abortion doctor like George Tiller, and finds that alleged murderer Scott Roeder came up short--though barely. Reno says that "The blanket condemnation [by...

Wednesday June 3, 2009

Benedict's kiddie kaffeeklatsch

The pope meets with children every year about this time, taking a few questions and providing rare--and affecting--personal insights that he doesn't offer up elsewhere. Last Saturday he met with 7,000 children from the Holy Childhood Association, which is affiliated with...

Tuesday June 2, 2009

Will Obama resurrect the Catholic left?

"Liberal Catholicism is an exhausted project," Chicago Cardinal Francis George famously said more than a decade ago. As noted earlier, the eminent church historian John O'Malley argues that Barack Obama could be reviving the "spirit of Vatican II" that is associated with a "progressive" Catholicism...

Tuesday June 2, 2009

Scott Roeder's mystery religion

That Scott Roeder is mentally unstable, a devotee of right-wing, anti-government extremism, and a fierce opponent of abortion seem to be a few of the hard facts  we have on him. But the suspect in the killing of Kansas abortion...

Tuesday June 2, 2009

Obama and the spirit of Vatican II

There have been several efforts to tease out connections between Barack Obama and Catholicism--not surprising given many clear affinities, if clearly not a wholesale overlap. Some have been more adept than others. John O'Malley, the Jesuit historian of the church...

Monday June 1, 2009

"You cannot prevent killing by killing."

"If anyone has an urge to kill someone at an abortion clinic, they should shoot me. ... It's madness. It discredits the right-to-life movement. Murder is murder. It's madness. You cannot prevent killing by killing." - John Cardinal O'Connor. It's...

Monday June 1, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , History, Politics

George Tiller: Portrait of a...serial killer?

You fill in the blanks. And many are, with varying answers. Here's Bill Donohue's take: "The Catholic League unequivocally condemns the killing of serial killer, Dr. George Tiller." Okay...Donohue goes on to condemn what he sees as the "politicization" of...

Monday June 1, 2009

Scott Roeder: Portrait of a zealot

Anti-abortion and anti-government, Scott Roeder appears to be a bomb with a short fuse. The Wichita Eagle has the best profile up so far: The suspect in custody in connection with the slaying of abortion doctor George Tiller was a...

Sunday May 31, 2009

Is it okay to kill an abortionist? Seriously...

Not a rhetorical exercise, especially not today. And not for the theocon journal First Things, which took up the question in seriousness in 1994 following Paul Hill's killing of an abortion doctor in Florida. Hill said in his defense, "Whatever force...

Sunday May 31, 2009

Tiller killing: Suspect may have right-wing ties

Local TV reports are naming the 51-year-old suspect as Scott Roeder, and other reports indicate he may have been a member of the anti-government Freemen group who was arrested in 1996 after authorities found what were apparently bomb-making materials in his...

Sunday May 31, 2009

Abortion doc killed in church; pro-lifers decry shooting

George Tiller, the Kansas abortionist whose willingness to perform late-term abortions made him especially anthema to pro-lifers, was shot and killed as he served as an usher this morning at his church, Redeemer Luthern. He was reportedly shot by...

Friday May 29, 2009

Kmiec-George Smackdown!

Fellow pro-lifers, Catholic conservatives--and since the 2008 campaign political antagonists--Doug Kmiec and Robert George faced off in a "discussion" (not a debate) last night at the National Press Club in Washington. The discussion was titled "The Obama Administration and the Sanctity...

Friday May 29, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , History, Politics

Bill Donohue (hearts) Sonia Sotomayor

If you didn't know that the head of the Catholic League was an old softie at heart, then his email exchange with Steve Waldman will change your mind. Responding to a question from Steve, Bill wrote: "I like the fact...

Thursday May 28, 2009

Do I disgust you?

Then you're probably a conservative. But if you would slap me, then you're probably a liberal. I think... Nicholas Kristof has the latest science on how our political and cultural leanings are products of our neurons: Would you be willing...

Thursday May 28, 2009

"Father Oprah" goes Episcopal: UPDATE on marriage

Father Alberto Cutie', a.k.a. "Father Oprah," the hunky South Florida priest with a popular television minstry on relationship advice and--it turned out--a girlfriend of his own on the side, has joined the Episcopal Church. That was fast. The AP...

Thursday May 28, 2009

The Mary Heresy: Papal support for Co-Redemptrix?

A lobby of hyper-Marianists sees signs that Benedict XVI is open to declaring the dogma that the BVM "corempetrix" of humanity with her Son--that'd be Jesus Christ. From the Vatican, RNS' Francis X. Rocca reports this week: At least...

Wednesday May 27, 2009

Obama names Vatican ambassador: Miguel H. Diaz

A banner week for Latino Catholics, and Barack Obama. The new U.S. ambassador to the Holy See (replacing Mary Ann Glendon) is a Cuban-born, 45-year-old associate professor of theology at St. John's College in Collegeville, Minn. As Fr. Jim...

Wednesday May 27, 2009

Sotomayor gets it from the Right...and the Left

Conservatives are honing strategies to take down Sonia Sotomayor, and are coming up with some of the usual beauts: After several conference calls to talk strategy with other conservative leaders, Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said they...

Wednesday May 27, 2009

Esther, schmester: Carrie Prejean as Bible heroine

Don't see the connection? Check out my essay on the topic at PoliticsDaily. The lede: So why does it seem as though every prominent shiksa wants to be a Jewish queen? As in Queen Esther, a favorite heroine of...

Wednesday May 27, 2009

Octo-mel: Gibson yuks it up over infidelity

Okay, it's one thing for uber-Traditionalist Catholic Mel to dispense with his marriage of 28 years and 7 children in private court proceedings. But what's up with the talk-show parade to promote his latest squeeze, Russian musician Oksana Grigorieva,...

Tuesday May 26, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , History, Politics

Is Sonia Sotomayor Catholic? UPDATE: Yes

Steve Waldman has White House confirmation. But an administration official later elbaorated: "Judge Sotomayor was raised as a Catholic and attends church for family celebrations and other important events." Sotomayor also served with Jesuit Father Joseph O'Hare, the retired president of...

Friday May 22, 2009

Categories: Church , History, Pop Culture

The new "Terminator" as a "sci-fi Nativity story"

That's the take from CT movie blogger Peter Chattaway on Terminator Salvation, which opens today: Regarding Terminator Salvation, director McG told mtv News that he and writer Jonathan Nolan were influenced by the stories of Luke Skywalker, Neo from...

Thursday May 21, 2009

Notre Dame: Have you no shame?

I was okay with Obama. But now the Fighting Irish are in talks to be the first to play college football in the new Death Star, er, Yankee Stadium: Jack Swarbrick, Notre Dame's athletic director, [told the New York Times...

Thursday May 21, 2009

Vatican editor: "Obama is not a pro-abortion president."

That is the judgment of the editor of L'Osservatore Romano, Gian Maria Vian, whose paper's rather neutral (neutered, to some) coverage of Obama has been in decided contrast to segments of the American church--and no small cause of consternation...

Thursday May 21, 2009

Saint Newt's conversion: "Part of me is inherently medieval."

Many would agree, no doubt. But that line, from Dan Gilgoff's conversation with Gingrich on his conversion to Catholicism, refers not to his political philosophy (that comes later) but to part of the appeal of the church for the...

Wednesday May 20, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , Pope

Howdy, cowboy!

Er, yer Holiness, sir... Must be spring in Rome, as Benedict brought out the saturno, so-called because of its resemblance to the planet. From today's weekly general audience. [Photo via CNS/Reuters]...

Wednesday May 20, 2009

Barack Obama: The second Catholic president?

At the Immanent Frame, the sociologist of religion Michelle Dillon sees a "Catholic sensibility" in Obama's commencement address at Notre Dame: "I am not thinking of Obama's references to the "imperfections of man" and to "original sin," or to...

Wednesday May 20, 2009

PBS v. "Mass for Shut-Ins"?

Do they really want to go there? The Public Broadcasting Service's board is to vote in June on a  recommendation to "strip the affiliation of any station that carries 'sectarian' content," as the Washington Post account has it. And apparently...

Tuesday May 19, 2009

Jesus in a Cheeto: Miracle or substantiation "con"?

Yes, another "Cheesus," and again in Texas. We had one here last July, though it was Christ on the Cross--more than blasphemous enough for me. (And what it means for Protestant theology on the Eucharist, God knows.) This week's...

Monday May 18, 2009

Notre Dame reaction roundup

The Vatican newspaper (hearts) Obama at Notre Dame: The newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, said the president also confirmed that pushing for a more liberal abortion law would not be a priority of his administration. The comments came in a L'Osservatore...

Monday May 18, 2009

FULL TEXT: Judge Noonan's Laetare remarks

A brief and to-the-point reflection that I think bears reading--a real signpost for the day, and the era: Mr. President, Father President, Distinguished Faculty and Guests, Members of the Class of 2009, Families and Friends. Graduates, you know today is...

Sunday May 17, 2009

The other Notre Dame speaker: Judge Noonan

He was the last-minute replacement after Mary Ann Glendon's last-minute cancellation. The federal judge and former Lateare Medal honoree (this was the first time since 1883 the medal was not awarded) was a very smart pick, and he did not...

Sunday May 17, 2009

Text of Obama's Notre Dame speech

Via the HuffPo: Below is the text of President Obama's Notre Dame commencement speech, as prepared for delivery. Thank you, Father Jenkins for that generous introduction. You are doing an outstanding job as president of this fine institution, and your...

Saturday May 16, 2009

Politics as Sacrament: WaPo story on the Church

The title of my piece in Sunday's "Outlook" section of the Washington Post is "Who Is a Real Catholic?" and it is already garnering some tough comments in reaction. That may be because in pointing to the assimilation/engagement trend in...

Saturday May 16, 2009

Support for Notre Dame and Obama

As cited below, retired Archbishop John R. Quinn, who wrote in support of the Notre Dame invitation earlier in America magazine, has sent a personal note to President Obama in which he says wants "to offer a different voice from...

Saturday May 16, 2009

Text of Archbishop Quinn letter to Obama

The text of Archbishop John Quinn's letter of support to Barack Obama: The President The White House Washington, D. C. 20500 Mr. President, I am writing as a Catholic Bishop to offer a different voice from the often strident outcries...

Thursday May 14, 2009

Angels & Demons: Read all about it right here

So here's the good news: It is safe to go see "Angels & Demons." I didn't think the novel of the same name was especially anti-Catholic, but director Ron Howard was apparently stung by reactions to "The Da Vinci Code"...

Thursday May 14, 2009

The Pope in the Holy Land: Two verdicts

At PoliticsDaily.com, Elizabeth Lev (the daughter of Mary Ann Glendon) titles her analysis "How Israel Could Have Been a Better Host to Benedict," and as the title suggests, takes aim at Israel and some Jewish leaders for undermining that leg of...

Thursday May 14, 2009

U.S. Catholics: Let Obama speak (and keep abortion legal)

That's the overwhelming verdict of the latest poll on President Obama's invitation to speak this Sunday at Notre Dame's commencement. The Quinnipiac University Poll shows that say Catholic voters favor keeping Obama on the program by a margin of 60-34--even...

Thursday May 14, 2009

Obama's commencement address

This is it. Really. Only it's the commencement at Arizona State--a university that decided not to give Obama an honorary degree, in contrast to what Notre Dame will do on Sunday. The honorary degree issue is becoming the favored talking...

Wednesday May 13, 2009

Benedict as Reagan

That is the trope taken from Pope Benedict's words today in the Aida refugee camp. The full text is here. And as Cindy Wooden writes in CNS: While Israeli officials, citing security concerns, forced organizers of the event at the camp...

Wednesday May 13, 2009

Benedict among the Christians

For me today's events--in Bethlehem and the Occupied Territories--are highlights of this papal trip to the Holy Land. Much of the focus is, inevtiably, on the pope's relations with Islam and Judaism--not the best, especially in the latter case--and...

Tuesday May 12, 2009

Catholics FOR Notre Dame! Better late than never...

It is more than six weeks since Notre Dame extended an invitation to President Obama to deliver the commencement address, sparking outrage from conservatives. And that address is now just five days away. BUT...Notre Dame supporters are just now officially out of...

Tuesday May 12, 2009

Obama's speech at Notre Dame: A sneak preview

By great good fortune, or the designs of Providence, the text of President Obama's commencement address this coming Sunday at Notre Dame has fallen into my hands. It is a powerful exposition of Obama's approach to the most controverted...

Friday May 8, 2009

Forgive trespasses? Alan Keyes and 21 others arrested at Notre Dame

The perennial fringe candidate of the Republican right, Alan Keyes, was arrested today along with 21 others who entered campus to protest Barack Obama's commencement invitation and refused to leave. As Chicago Breakng News reports: Keyes was among a group...

Friday May 8, 2009

FULL TEXT: Archbishop Raymond Burke's speech at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast

  KEYNOTE ADDRESS OF THE MOST REVEREND RAYMOND LEO BURKE, D.D., J.C.D. ARCHBISHOP-EMERITUS OF SAINT LOUIS PREFECT OF THE SUPREME TRIBUNAL OF THE APOSTOLIC SIGNATURA NATIONAL CATHOLIC PRAYER BREAKFAST   "CELEBRATION OF THE TEACHINGS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH"   WASHINGTON,...

Thursday May 7, 2009

The uses and abuses of Newman

Cardinal John Henry Newman is, in death, and like Saint Paul in life, all things to all people. I am a great fan. But those who might see themselves as my polar opposite--say, the watchdogs of the Cardinal Newman Society--also...

Thursday May 7, 2009

Dom DeLuise, RIP

Maybe I am of a certain age now, but Dom DeLuise was a favorite. And the testimonies of his colleagues--the likes of Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner--is enough to guarantee his comedic legacy. But do they make 'em like...

Thursday May 7, 2009

Women as Swiss Guards? They could make this look good...

And they say the Catholic Church never changes...Which is why when the commandante of the Swiss Guards suggests women could be Swiss Guards--the all-male corps that has protected popes since 1506--opens the possibility, it makes headlines. VATICAN CITY (AP)...

Thursday May 7, 2009

Do you pray?

The National Day of Prayer is today, Thursday, May 7, and though it is a thoroughly politicized event run out of Focus on the Family--read Dan Gilgoff's USNews report on the maneuverings this year now that Barack Obama in the White...

Wednesday May 6, 2009

Obama=Hitler? A debate rages...

The Obama-Hitler meme has been repeated ad nauseum during the Notre Dame commencement controversy, threatening to become a self-sustaining corollary to Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies. It is the verbal equivalent of the gruesome anti-abortion plane banners being flown around campus,...

Tuesday May 5, 2009

The Three-Minute Confirmation Stick

All about Supreme Court nominees and the "A-word." That word is not "awesome." But this segment is. Hat tip to Cathy Kaveny at dotCommonweal, a "Daily Show" devotee. The Daily Show With Jon Stewart M - Th 11p / 10c...

Tuesday May 5, 2009

Bishop Wenski's Notre Dame "reparation" homily

The homily from Sunday's mass is posted. Here is the full text...(I'd pasted the wrong text before...mea culpa.) As Amy Welborn said, the reparation idea is kind of strange, and Bp. Wenski seems to try to finesse it. But it still...

Monday May 4, 2009

Obama supporters: Russell Shaw wants an apology

Our Sunday Visitor's Russell Shaw, a longtime conservative Catholic journalist and observer--and often trenchant critic--of the American scene says Obama supporters should apologize for saying Catholics could support Obama because the president has, and will, do nothing but expand...

Monday May 4, 2009

Notre Dame "reparation" Mass: Bishop Wenski explains

The Mass of Reparation for sins against the culture of life, and specifically for the Notre Dame invite to Barack Obama, took place Sunday evening at the Cathedral of St. James in Orlando. [NB: I had the date wrong in earlier version...

Monday May 4, 2009

Pope in the Holy Land: "Keep your head down--in prayer"

That's my walkaway in this scene-setter for Benedict's trip to Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian territories, which is being recognized as the most difficult and risky of his pontificate--not least because of some of the baggage he himself will...

Sunday May 3, 2009

Scottish Cardinal on the uses of controversy

Cardinal Keith O'Brien has always had a knack for making headlines, and he recently explained why he likes to use "colourful imagery" in pronouncements on issues such as abortion and stem-cell research, as he has done lately: "Churchmen have been speaking out against...

Saturday May 2, 2009

Categories: Church , History, Pop Culture

The Garden of Eden?

According to a new genetic survey, DNA tracing indicates Eden--and the first humans--emerged somewhere along the border between what is today Namibia and Angola in southwestern Africa (pictured above). Maybe it didn't look like that eons--or 6,000 years--ago. The...

Friday May 1, 2009

If no FOCA, what now for the anti-abortion movement?

The relevant text of Obama's 100-day newser (excerpt below, from HuffPo) indicates that the dreaded FOCA (Freedom of Choice Act) is not in the offing, at all. When many of of suggested that was the case (as I did...

Friday May 1, 2009

"America" on Notre Dame: Beware neo-Donatists!

In a powerful editorial just up on their website, the editors at America magazine decry the "sectarian Catholicism" that seems to be emerging, with the Notre Dame furor epitomizing the drift toward the insular self-righteousness of the Donatists of Saint...

Friday May 1, 2009

Abortion rights support falling, gun rights support rising

The latest Pew survey shows a significant drop in the support for abortion rights, with the percentage of Americans saying abortion should be legal in all or most cases declining from 54 percent last August to 46 percent today:...

Thursday April 30, 2009

Poll on Notre Dame controversy: Good news, bad news

Which is which may depend on where you stand on this divisive issue. A new survey from the Pew Forum (main graf at right) shows that Catholics in general approve of Notre Dame's decision to invite and honor Obama...

Thursday April 30, 2009

Chrysler: Bad cars, great skyscraper

In reporting in the wake of 9/11, I did a piece on the skyscrapers of New York, and spoke with the people at the Skyscraper Museum, which was about to move to new digs at the World Trade Center...

Thursday April 30, 2009

BREAKING: Judge Noonan to deliver Notre Dame Laetare address

But he won't receive the prestigious medal, as he has already has it. Instead the federal judge (appointed by Reagan) and author of several excellent books, especially his Newman-esque treatise on the development of doctrine, "A Church that Can and Cannot Change," will "deliver...

Wednesday April 29, 2009

Obama the Conservative

Since everyone else is honoring the momentous, history-changing and completely fatuous journalistic landmark known as "The First 100 Days Milestone" of a presidency, let me dip my toe in the water. Or rather, let me cite some others who beat...

Wednesday April 29, 2009

Aborted fetuses fly over Notre Dame

Yes, that's right. According to PoliticsDaily's Kaitlynn Reily (see post below) it has come to this: "At around 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, I heard the droning noise of a small plane and looked out my window to see one flying low...

Wednesday April 29, 2009

Glendon's daughter: Don't mess with Mom

Over at PoliticsDaily.com, Mary Ann Glendon's daughter, Liz Lev (at right), has penned a tart defense of her mother's decision to decline the Laetare Medal from Notre Dame--the highest honor given an American Catholic--because she would share the stage with...

Tuesday April 28, 2009

In praise of (Benedict's) folly...

An op-ed in yesterday's New York Times, by the religious affairs correspondent of DW-TV, Germany's international state broadcaster, takes a different angle on what most consider Pope Benedict's various missteps with Muslims, Jews, and Catholics, and on issues like AIDS and condoms....

Tuesday April 28, 2009

Campus speakers: Double-standard?

Rocco also has a Providence Journal story about former GOP congressman (and former Catholic, I believe) and outspoken immigration opponent Tom Tancredo not being allowed to speak at Dominican-run Providence College. A PC spokesperson, Pat Viera, indicated the student group...

Tuesday April 28, 2009

Here's an eye-catching foto

But Father Angelo Idi of Vigevano, a bastion of neo-fascist sentiment in Northern Italy, is making no apologies, according to Austrian Times: Fascist Father Angelo Idi, 51 - who once saw off a charity box thief with a truncheon...

Monday April 27, 2009

Moving on: Notre Dame looking for Glendon replacement

The response from Fr. Jenkins: "We are, of course, disappointed that Professor Glendon has made this decision. It is our intention to award the Laetare Medal to another deserving recipient, and we will make that announcement as soon as possible."...

Monday April 27, 2009

Gay marriage and Champagne

What do they have in common? As Rhode Island's Bishop Thomas Tobin explains, nothing. Homosexual marriage is more like Chianti. (Or is it oysters and snails, Antoninus?) In any case, Bishop Tobin seems to be emerging as one of...

Sunday April 26, 2009

Categories: Bishops, Catholic, Church , History, Pope

Jesuit weekly: Church should consider married priests

America magazine, the Jesuit weekly that has taken serious heat from Rome (and in particular Joseph Ratzinger) in recent years, this weeks shows again that in the year of its centennial, it remains a rare venue for serious discussion of...

Friday April 24, 2009

Another Catholic commencement, another bishop boycott

This time it is Archbishop Alfred Hughes of New Orleans who has said he will boycott graduation at Xavier University because they are giving an honorary degree to Donna Brazile, the veteran Democratic political strategist and Catholic and New Orleans...

Thursday April 23, 2009

Bishop D'Arcy: Notre Dame made "terrible breach" with the church

That's the latest blast from the Bishop of South Bend, Bishop John D'Arcy. The statement concludes: As I have said in a recent interview and which I have said to Father Jenkins, it would be one thing to bring...

Wednesday April 22, 2009

Angels & Demons, Howard v. Donohue

But which is the Angel and which the Demon? The feud before the May 15 premiere of "Angels & Demons," the latest film version of a Dan Brown novel is heating up. (My take from last year: Brown is...

Tuesday April 21, 2009

Do you believe in global warming?

Earth Day is tomorrow, Wednesday, April 22, and the folks at Pew have a poll out showing who think the Earth is warming and who doesn't, and whether they think we (humanity) have anything to do with it. Not...

Saturday April 18, 2009

The real Susan Boyle: Her parish priest's testimony

Here, from Catholic News Service, is a wonderful story about the amateur talent shocker and Internet sensation, Susan Boyle. It's from the mouth of Father Basil Clark, her parish priest in Scotland, who says he has seen stunned faces like those...

Saturday April 18, 2009

Mass of Reparation for Notre Dame's Obama invitation. Wow...

Bishop Thomas Wenski of Orlando is going to lead a Mass of Reparation linked to Notre Dame's invitation to Obama. This whole thing has truly gone into an alternate universe. The mass is May 3 at 6:00 p.m. in the...

Friday April 17, 2009

Finding Obama's ambassador to the Vatican

After all the rumors and misdirection about who Obama will or can't or won't pick, Eric Gorksi of the AP has a very good and realisitc look at the process and possible candidates here. The lede: Since the United States and...

Friday April 17, 2009

Porn star dies, Catholic theologian jumps on the grave

Marilyn Chambers, who went from the "Ivory Snow" poster mom to star of the porn classic, "Behind the Green Door," died on Easter Sunday. She was 56. A fulfilling life? She was a mother in ral life it seems, but never...

Thursday April 16, 2009

Obama nixes Jesus? Of crosses and urban legends

So the latest Obama-hates-God "story" making its way around the conservative blogosphere is that the president ordered religious symbols covered during his policy speech on the economy at Georgetown this week. The clear implication is that, obviously, Obama is an...

Thursday April 16, 2009

Montreal Cardinal: Abortion sometimes only choice

Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte made the comments in reference to the widely-publicized case of the nine-year-old sexually abused girl in Brazil impregnated with twins by her stepfather. In his interview with Quebec's Le Devoir newspaper (click here for the original...

Thursday April 16, 2009

Categories: Church , Politics, Pop Culture

Rush Limbaugh as Saint Francis?

The right-wing crock jock does love animals--don't get between Rush and his cat, Punkin. So it's no surprise that he is the latest celebrity plugger enlisted by the Humane Society in its campaign to underscore the link between faith and...

Wednesday April 15, 2009

Move to oust Notre Dame's president

While the chief goal of the more strident opponents of Obama's scheduled appearance at Notre Dame's commencement has been to get the president dis-invited, a new effort is being organized to fire university president Father John Jenkins, CSC. The campaign...

Wednesday April 15, 2009

Categories: Bishops, Catholic, Church , History

"To Whom Shall We Go?"

That was the question Simon Peter posed to Jesus, and it is Archbishop Dolan's motto. Heraldry maven Fr. Guy Selvester at "Shouts" has the fascinating whys and wherefores of the symbols of the coat of arms: The red saltire or "X" shaped cross...

Wednesday April 15, 2009

Church "honoring" Bill Richardson?

The pro-choice Democratic--and Catholic--New Mexico governor is going to Rome next week with his archbishop, Michael Sheehan, to a special lighting ceremony at the Colosseum in honor of the state's decision to repeal the death penatly. The effort was a...

Wednesday April 15, 2009

Dolan the Diplomat

True to form, at his first news conference as Archbishop of New York, held this morning before this afternoon's installation Mass, Timothy Dolan was humorous, enthusiastic, engaged and--not swinging at every pitch. While many might see him as a "throwback"...

Tuesday April 14, 2009

The Passion of the Gibsons

PEOPLE magazine reports that Mel Gibson (no relation, in so many ways) and his wife of 28 years, Robyn, have filed for divorce and joint custody of their one minor child, a nine-year-old boy. (They have six older children.) Granted,...

Tuesday April 14, 2009

"It sure beats sitting at home doing our last-minute tax returns..."

That was Archbishop Timothy Dolan's opening quip tonight--and not his only one--at the Vespers service this evening welcoming the city's tenth archbishop (and lucky 13th bishop). The Times "City Room" blog has a fine play-by-play here, with lots of color and...

Tuesday April 14, 2009

A Pagan responds...

Beliefnet's own Gus diZerega, author of "A Pagan's Blog," has a very thoughtful (he's nicer than I am, that is) response to my post below on Starhawk calling on Pope Benedict XVI to apologize for the church's persecution of witches....

Tuesday April 14, 2009

Obama at Georgetown blasts a culture of "instant gratification"

His speech at the Jesuit university today on the economy (he is speaking as I write) evokes the themes of personal responsibility and the similarly "old-fashioned"--dare I say conservative?--values that he has reiterated since his inauguration. (It has been an interesting shift,...

Tuesday April 14, 2009

Wicca Smackdown: Starhawk calls out the Pope!

She demands: Apologize or...Well, not sure what the stick is, but I wouldn't want to find out. Starhawk, one of the nation's most prominent advocates for Wicca, the modern-day reincarnation of neo-paganism, has an "On Faith" column at the WaPo today...

Monday April 13, 2009

Joy and hopes...

At another U.S. parish, this time in Vermont, there is rejoicing over the dramatic and traumatic conclusion of the hostage ship captain held for five days by Somali priates. Richard Phillips (at right, with the captain of the USS...

Monday April 13, 2009

Griefs and anxieties...

The death of the young Angels' pitcher, Nick Adenhart, and two others in the car he was driving, was one of those tragedies that hits you in the gut, even though it happens very day, everywhere--a drunk driver plowing...

Monday April 13, 2009

Another Easter gallery...

More superb pictures of Easter around the world via the Dallas Morning News...  ...

Monday April 13, 2009

Catholic Identity Crisis resolved: An ID card!

Yep, and you can get one from an organization called World Priest, which is the brainchild of Quantum Universal, a group of Catholic communications lay people in Ireland and the US, led by CEO Marion Mulhall, a fascinating person who is...

Monday April 13, 2009

And back to the sublime...If you like Peeps

And who doesn't? Personally, I snatch 'em up at the drug store for next to nuthin' this week, open the wrapper and let them get nice and stale and snappy. Aged to perfection, I enjoy them slowly, like a fine...

Monday April 13, 2009

Easter Pageant: From the sublime to the...

...Well, less sublime. My Easter weekend was busy with egg-decorating and egg-hunting and family gatherings, and, oh yeah, Mass. It was all greatly enjoyable, if more hectic than I want. But such is life, and that's fine. Back to...

Friday April 10, 2009

The Crucifixion, human and divine

Here is the "God's eye" view of the Crucifixion, from the artists who brought us the Exodus-via-satellite, as posted for Passover here.  ...

Friday April 10, 2009

Twittering the Passion

I will give in and sign up for Twitter at some point, sooner rather than later. But this is the sort of thing that gives me pause: NEW YORK (AP) -- Experience the Passion of Christ -- in 140-character bursts....

Friday April 10, 2009

Bishop Zubik: "I beg you--the church begs you--for forgiveness"

Those were some of the extraordinary words of Bishop David Zubik at an extraordinary "Service of Apology" held earlier this Holy Week in St. Paul's Cathedral in Pittsburgh for anyone hurt or abused by the church. This is not out of character...

Thursday April 9, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , History, Pope

"What is it like to let Jesus serve you?"

Fr. Jim Martin poses that question at the America blog in light of the painting below. He writes: The answer is in the look on St. Peter's face, in this my favorite painting, by Ford Madox Brown of the scene from the...

Thursday April 9, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , Politics, Pope

Debunking the Vatican-Obama ambassador report

Reports have circulated for the past couple of weeks that the Vatican has rejected three would-be ambassadors to the Holy See put forth by the Obama Administration. It apparently started with an April 2 NewsMax report that cited Massimo Franco, author...

Thursday April 9, 2009

Categories: Bishops, Catholic, Church , History, Pope

A priesthood returning to its roots?

Today is Holy Thursday, or Maundy Thursday, as it is popularly know, though that descriptor seems as odd as "Good Friday." Maundy actually comes from the Latin word mandatum, which refers to Jesus' words to the Apostles as he washes...

Thursday April 9, 2009

Blairs Glitch Project: Church faux pas on condoms and gays

Cherie Blair, Catholic wife of the former British PM and recent convert Tony, in December spoke at the Angelicum in Rome despite some protests over her pro-life bona fides. Now she tells The Times of Malta she is "saddened" by the...

Wednesday April 8, 2009

Confession: My Cross of Palms

Three days after Palm Sunday and I still can't figure out how to make a decent cross from the fronds. I suspect this is evidence of an incomplete conversion. Last year a nice lady stood in the vestibule after...

Wednesday April 8, 2009

Take the Easter Quiz!

And see how many you get right. Via Christian History. A couple teasers: 1) Around the year 326, Emperor Constantine ordered the traditional site of Christ's crucifixion and burial to be excavated and a church to be built there....

Tuesday April 7, 2009

The Templars and the Shroud?

No, this isn't a "Da Vinci Code" post about the upcoming "Angels & Demons" schlockfest. Seriously, it seems the Templars--the Forrest Gumps of history and conspiracy theories--were custodians of the Shroud of Turin centuries back. Secretly, of course. CNS...

Tuesday April 7, 2009

Is Easter pagan? Or was it?

The subhead of this informative Christian History essay says it all: "The historical evidence contradicts this popular notion." But it's worth reading the whole thing should you be called on to give reasons for your beliefs, which has been known...

Tuesday April 7, 2009

Wait till next year? Nah. Play ball!

So maybe God isn't a Catholic--or maybe she is, but felt Catholics could use a lesson in humility (another one?!) and thus Villanova had to lose, badly, in the Final Four and North Carolina had to continue its dynastic ways...

Tuesday April 7, 2009

"Only loss is universal..."

The full quotation, from a NYT op-ed this morning about the great Italian novelist Ignazio Silone and his experience of a devastating 1915 earthquake like that which struck the Abruzzo yesterday, runs: "Only loss is universal, and true cosmopolitanism in this...

Monday April 6, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , History, Pope

Another kind of Passion...

The toll in the earthquake that struck the beautiful Abruzzo region of Italy is nearing 100, with another 1,500 injured and 40,000-50,000 homeless. NYT report here... The epicenter was in L'Aquila, a picturesque Medieval fortress hill town, where most of...

Sunday April 5, 2009

Illuminations of Faith

Also via dotCommonweal, two posts from Father Joseph Komonchak, a church historian at Catholic University of America and a man with a keen eye and pen: The first regards an article in the Washington Post on an exhibit at the National...

Sunday April 5, 2009

Packed pews on Palm Sunday But who are those people?

That's the question Peggy Steinfels posed in a post-Passion Sunday post over at dotCommonweal. She was casting about for fellow curmudgeons, but found surprisingly few despite her set-up: Every year I forget that half the church is full of people...

Friday April 3, 2009

The Vatican and Notre Dame

What has Rome said about the Notre Dame controversy over the Obama invitation? Nothing. And that's the useful point that CNS's Vatican buro chief, John Thavis, makes in this blog commentary. There's been no Vatican statement, and the Vatican newspaper...

Thursday April 2, 2009

Notre Dame solution: Rename the University!

And Bishop Thomas G. Doran of the Diocese of Rockford, Ill., has a couple of suggestions in the letter of protest he sent to Fr. Jenkins, president of Notre Dame. After expressing his outrage (old hat by now), Bishop Doran...

Thursday April 2, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , History, Pope

"Blessed" John Paul? Not yet. But patience...

On this, the fourth anniverary of the death of Pope John Paul II, a time that brought millions into the streets of Rome chanting "Santo subito!", the beatification process is moving, but not as quickly as some might hope....

Thursday April 2, 2009

Apostasy afoot on Quebec

Some would say this has been happening for a while in the once thoroughly Catholic province, but a few recent stories out of the Vatican seem to have pushed some Catholic Quebecois over the edge and into formally disavowing the...

Thursday April 2, 2009

Categories: Church , History, Pop Culture, Pope

Playmobil Passion? Nein!

So get this: An evangelical pastor in Germany does a little "customizing" of some of those popular Playmobil toy figures to make Bible scenes--including a Passion--and the company wants to shut him down. Unfair? Or unfair use? The National...

Thursday April 2, 2009

Barack Obama: Our first Muslim president?

That's the positive spin one could put on a new survey from the Pew Forum which shows that 11 percent of Americans still believe Obama (who is a professed and profesing Christian) is a Muslim. That's almost unchanged from...

Wednesday April 1, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , Pop Culture

Speaking of March Madness...

Here is a moving story about the storybook Villanova guard, Scottie Reynolds. The unbelievable story of Scottie Reynolds begins some years ago with a decision made by a young and scared teenage woman. She was from Alabama and pregnant...

Wednesday April 1, 2009

March Madness? Follia di Marzo? April Fools'?

Actually, a blog post from CNS previewing the first volleyball rally ever to be played in St. Peter's Square. Three hundred kids aged eight to 11 were to play on 16 makeshift courts in the square between 8:30 and 10...

Wednesday April 1, 2009

iFaith...Yes, an Archdiocesan iPhone app...

It's an iPhone application from the Archdiocese of New Orleans. From the release: Want to know what's going on in the Archdiocese of New Orleans? Fire up iFaith and tap "latest news" to read all of the latest Archdiocesan...

Tuesday March 31, 2009

Notre Dame outrage update: Cardinal George, Archbp Quinn, et al

America magazine, as promised, has the official, redacted version of Fr. Cleary's letter to President Obama here. It is much more successful, I think, largely thanks to editing. Better still, from my point of view, FWIW, is a commentary on the...

Tuesday March 31, 2009

Holy Cross head writes to Obama re Notre Dame

When I first saw the text of the 13-page letter from U.S. Father Hugh W. Cleary, Holy Cross superior general in Rome, to President Obama, regarding Obama's scheduled commencement address at Notre Dame, I couldn't make heads or tails of it. It...

Tuesday March 31, 2009

Full text of Holy Cross head's letter to Obama

Here is the full text of the 13-page letter (click at the end of this page for the rest) to President Obama from the Rev. Hugh W. Cleary, C.S.C. Superior General of the Congregation of Holy Cross, which oversees Notre...

Tuesday March 31, 2009

Categories: Bishops, Catholic, Church , Politics

No "Capitol punishment" on communion

There have been a growing number of reports that Kansas City Archbishop Joseph Naumann has asked Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington (and Bishop Paul Loverde of nearby Arlington, Va) to bar former Kansas governor and future Health and Human Services chief Kathleen Sebelius...

Tuesday March 31, 2009

The pope on condoms: What he could have said...

And it's already been said, quite well, by the U.S. bishops, in their 1987 statement "The Many Faces of AIDS." Father Tom Reese points to it in his post at "On Faith," when he writes: "After clearly stating that the...

Tuesday March 31, 2009

Pope: Investigate the Legionaries of Christ

The Vatican has officially launched an investigation of the Legionaries of Christ, the controversial, scandal-ridden order whose late founder, Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, was last year found to have fathered a child out of wedlock. He is also suspected of...

Tuesday March 31, 2009

Categories: Bishops, Catholic, Church , Politics

Equal opportunity bishops: RNC's Steele is boycotted

Michael Steele, the ostensibly pro-life Catholic and, also ostensibly, the new hope of the GOP--though that's dimmed considerably since he won election as head of the RNC--is being boycotted by Bishop Gerald Gettelfinger of Evansville, Indiana. Steele is to be the keynoter at the local...

Monday March 30, 2009

"Who painted it?"

Hillary's first major gaffe as Secretary of State! It's not fair, but this is a blog. And the icon of Our Lady of Guadalupe is one of the most famous miracles in the church, the pride of Mexico (and beyond)...

Monday March 30, 2009

Catholics skew liberal--even the churchgoers

That's the upshot of a Gallup Poll analysis just released here hooked to Obama's upcoming Notre Dame commencement address. On the "moral acceptability" of abortion and embryonic stem cell research, Catholics mirror the wider populations, with 4 in 10 saying abortion can...

Monday March 30, 2009

Ayres and Obama, together again...sort of.

The former Weather Underground activist/terrorist/educator/paller-around was invited by a student groups to speak at Boston College--but the event was canceled, as The Globe reports. At First Things, they see irony--in their inimitable way (and really, don't try to imitate it)--as...

Monday March 30, 2009

Categories: Bishops, Catholic, Church , History, Pope

Really early warning on abusers: "Even an island is too good for these vipers"

That is just one of the remarkable and poignant quotations from Tom Roberts' new story at NCR on a old topic--clerical sexual abuse--and an even older warning, from back in the 1950s. In correspondence Roberts dug up between Fr....

Monday March 30, 2009

Three saints of the day: Climacus, Rahner, Bowman

Or would-be saints, perhaps "will-be" saints, in the case of Karl Rahner, who died 25 years ago today, and Sr. Thea Bowman, the African-American Franciscan, who helped to found the Institute of Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University in New...

Friday March 27, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , Pop Culture

Villanova beats Duke: There is a God...

And he is obviously Catholic. But the proof of her existence will come tonight if Gonzaga beats North Carolina. Read it and weep. Brackets here......

Friday March 27, 2009

Superstition and Religion: My take at the WSJ

From today's "Houses of Worship" column, which is titled "Is One Man's Faith Another's Superstition?" I try to explore the difference between religion and superstition, or witchcraft, an issue that the pope raised in Angola last week. An excerpt: The...

Friday March 27, 2009

"Ressourcement" or "Aggiornamento"? A final note on condoms

Well, let's hope it's final. Just as a bit of housekeeping, it seems that after editing and changing some of Pope Benedict's comments on condoms when he was in Africa--and prompting an uproar--the official text is back to what the pope...

Friday March 27, 2009

A shout-out for "Shouts in the Piazza"

Many of you know Rocco Palmo's "Whispers in the Loggia." Well now you can visit Fr. Guy Selvester's "Shouts in the Piazza," which he has resucitated by popular demand. Father Guy in a parish priest in my native New Jersey...

Thursday March 26, 2009

The Archbishop regrets...

"Never mind." That seems to be Archbishop Burke's take on his explosive interview with Randall Terry of Operation Rescue in which he took Obama voters and his brother bishops in the U.S. to task for being softies. Rocco has the...

Thursday March 26, 2009

Phoenix Bishop says Notre Dame prez "disobedient"

A remarkable development in the Obama-to-Notre Dame saga, via Thomas Peters, the "American Papist": Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix has sent Fr. John Jenkins, president of Notre Dame, an email saying his invitation to Obama to speak at the May 17...

Thursday March 26, 2009

Archbishop Burke to Terry: Be liberal in denying communion

That's the thrust of Archbishop Raymond Burke's message to Operation Rescue's Randall Terry, who released video of his interview this week. Terry, who is leading one of the more eye-popping campaigns against Obama's Notre Dame appearance, had promised "candor and...

Wednesday March 25, 2009

Notre Dame's exit strategy: Invite Gingrich instead

Hey, the former House Speaker, pro-death-penalty, thrice-married, GOP comeback kid is making it official and becoming a Catholic this Saturday at St. Joseph's Church, the venerable Capitol Hill parish. The WaPo's Chris Cillizza has The Fix. Media Matters details...

Wednesday March 25, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , Politics

Terrible beauty

I saw this photo while flipping through The Times this morning, and at first I thought it might be a new installation by the artist Richard Serra. Instead, it is an image, beautiful yet terrible, of a recently completed section...

Wednesday March 25, 2009

Obama's stem cell qualifiers...clarifying?

In his press conference last night President Obama took a question from The Washington Times' John Ward about his controversial stem cell decision last month--an announcement that left me, and many others, rather cold. Obama's response was intriguing in that...

Tuesday March 24, 2009

Bishop D'Arcy to boycott Obama at Notre Dame

Bishop John M. D'Arcy of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, which includes Notre Dame, has released a statement on the university's invitation to President Obama to deliver the main commencement address and receieve an honorary degree on May 17. (Full...

Tuesday March 24, 2009

Text of Bishop D'Arcy's statement on Obama at Notre Dame

Here is the text of Bishop John M. D'Arcy's has released a statement on Notre Dame's invitation to President Obama to deliver the main commencement address and receive an honorary degree on May 17: Concerning President Barack Obama speaking at Notre Dame graduation,...

Tuesday March 24, 2009

The turtle [tortoise] stays in Africa

But I think they finessed it pretty well. John Thavis has a blog post, and auto-corrects that it is a "tortoise" not a turtle. If you don't know the difference, you are probably not interested in this story anyway....

Monday March 23, 2009

Notre Dame and Obama: Of Absurdities and Ayatollahs

Father Tom Reese, SJ, a well-known commentator and savvy political scientist of the church, makes the pointed point that objecting to the Obama invite on the grounds that it violates the bishops' document "Catholics in Political Life" is "absurd. He...

Monday March 23, 2009

"Casting the first stone"

That's the title of the latest column by Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl, in which he laments the polarized state of discourse in the Church--and begins to sketch a remedy by using an effective illustration: At a recent clergy gathering, the principal...

Sunday March 22, 2009

Notre Dame students (heart) Obama

While the CNS (Cardinal Newman Society, not Catholic News Service) starts a petition against Obama delivering the commencement address at Notre Dame in May, and while commenters at this blog and elsewhere vent that this is the end of support...

Sunday March 22, 2009

Religion or Superstition?

In his homily Saturday in Luanda, the pope confronted the delicate question of superstition in African culture: Today it is up to you, brothers and sisters, following in the footsteps of those heroic and holy heralds of God, to offer...

Friday March 20, 2009

Obama to give commencement address at Notre Dame

This should get the Irish fighting, along with lots of other Catholics. Or am I wrong? Via The South Bend Tribune: Obama will be the principal speaker and the recipient of an honorary doctor of laws degree at the university's...

Friday March 20, 2009

Benedict connects with Africa

That seems to be the upshot of coverage. Having dispensed with condoms, he has spoken strongly and movingly about the great social problems facing the continent, and the specific countries he has visited--first Cameroon and now Angola. NCR's John Allen...

Friday March 20, 2009

He got a turtle!

The pope gets treated, well, like a pope. A group of Pygmies showed up as Benedict XVI was leaving Cameroon in an unscheduled visit with an unexpected gift: a live turtle to take back to the Vatican. John Thavis of CNS reports:...

Friday March 20, 2009

Brazil church officials defend approach to child rape victim

The excommunications surrounding the abortion resulting from the case of a 9-year-old girl raped by her abusive stepfather and impregnated with twins were correct and the pastoral care of the child caring and sensitive...And the Vatican official who publicly criticized...

Thursday March 19, 2009

Pope in U.S. dominated religion coverage in 2008

Nothing else was close. Benedict's April visit to the U.S. took up 37 percent of the religion newshole, while religion stories from the campaign accounted for 21 percent, according to an analysis of the mainstream media in 2008 conducted by...

Thursday March 19, 2009

The Feast of St. Joseph

As noted before, I've developed a great affection for St. Joseph, whose feast day is today. It is also, of course, Joseph Ratzinger's name day (or onomastico, in Italian), and Benedict XVI, as we now call him, took note of that...

Wednesday March 18, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , Pop Culture

Natasha Richardson dies at 45

It had seemed inevitable for some hours, but still terrible now that it is confirmed. The New York Times coverage is here, the WaPo here. Prayers for Liam Neeson and their two sons and the family....

Wednesday March 18, 2009

UDATE on pope-condom comments

THURSDAY UPDATE: John Thavis has a good look at the whole Vatican "redaction temptation" issue as regards the pope's "official" comments.  It's called, "There they go again..." PREVIOUS ENTRY BEGINS HERE: As the pushback against the pope's statements about condoms worsening the spread of...

Wednesday March 18, 2009

Categories: Bishops, Catholic, Church , History, Pope

Benedict in Cameroon, Day 1: Pope Leo?

Not to worry--unlike the feisty cub the pope sported with in the Vatican last month, this one at right (AP foto via Rocco) isn't going to hurt a bit. Such are the marvelous incongruities of a papal visit to...

Wednesday March 18, 2009

An evangelical supporter's disappointment in Obama

David P. Gushee, a well-known and widely-respected ethicist and evangelical voice who supported Barack Obama, expresses what sounds like some buyer's remorse in a March 16 column at USA Today titled, "Mr. President, we need more than lip service": "I...

Wednesday March 18, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , Pop Culture

Study: Believers fight death to the last

But is it fear or faith that makes them do it? A new study from The Journal of the American Medical Association does not go into the motivations, but its findings are drawing notice: As The Times account has it: Terminally ill...

Tuesday March 17, 2009

The Irish according to The Simpsons...

"It always comes down to transubstantiation versus consubstantiation." Leave it to Lisa to sum it all up. Last one for the day. Couldn't stop myself. Tip to the Dish. Erin Go Bragh!  ...

Tuesday March 17, 2009

Pope and condoms: The Full Monty

As usual, CNS's John Thavis has the fullest and best account in this analysis: YAOUNDE, Cameroon (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI's declaration that distribution of condoms only increases the problem of AIDS is the latest and one of the strongest...

Tuesday March 17, 2009

Natasha Richardson injured skiing, and rumors abound

 Actress Natasha Richardson apparently suffered some sort of head injury while skiing north of Montreal, but after dire reports that she was in critical condition or worse, it seems she's now taken a plane back to New York with...

Tuesday March 17, 2009

The Cardinal blasts, then meets, the President

Chicago Cardinal Francis George, leader of the U.S. bishops conference, yesterday warned that Obama's move to lift a last-minute Bush "conscience clause" regulation for health-care workers would be "the first step in moving our country from democracy to despotism."  ...

Tuesday March 17, 2009

Was the Pope right about condoms and AIDS?

Following up on the previous post about Benedict saying condom distribution aggravated the AIDS epidemic, here are a few references: Richard Owen's Times of London report on Benedict's comments today note that when a Vatican official made similar claims a...

Tuesday March 17, 2009

Pope: Condoms make AIDS epidemic worse

During the in-flight newser to Cameroon for his first African trip, Benedict XVI responded to six questions, one regarding the urgent issue of AIDS in Africa. His response, via CNS: "One cannot overcome the problem with the distribution of...

Tuesday March 17, 2009

Celebrate St. Patrick's Day--without a hangover!

At BustedHalo, Mike Hayes--son of Irish immigrants, he knows from Irish, tells you how, with five ideas. Before anything, of course, avoid green beer. But who would drink that anyway? You'd be sure to wind up driving the porcelain bus like...

Tuesday March 17, 2009

St. Patrick: Did he exist? What did he look like? Does it matter?

At America magazine, author Jon M. Sweeney examines what we know of the Saint's life, and what is fanciful--but perhaps just as important. Both the hard facts and the fanciful legends about Patrick have the power to fascinate and...

Monday March 16, 2009

Christine Quinn: Not Irish enough--or too gay?

The speaker of the New York City Council, a pretty powerful and savvy lass, is also about as Irish as they come. But she's openly gay, too. Which means she can't march in New York's annual March 17 Eire-extravaganza up Fifth...

Monday March 16, 2009

Categories: Bishops, Catholic, Church , History, Pope

More excommunications miscommunication

Another coda to the terrible story of the 9-year-old girl in Brazil whose serially abusive stepfather impregnated her with twins, leading her mother to take her for an abortion on the advice of doctors who said her life was at...

Monday March 16, 2009

Categories: Bishops, Catholic, Church , History, Pope

Rock and a hard place: Pope says laity can't fill priest vacuum

Benedict XVI today announced a "Year for Priests"-- a fine idea, though one that apparently also comes with a tough message for lay people dealing with a shortage of priests, and the Eucharist. First, the announcement. According to the Vatican...

Sunday March 15, 2009

"Cheney Asserts Obama Has Raised Security Risks"

That's the headline on the Times story regarding Cheney's remarks on CNN on Sunday. Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday that President Obama had made the country less safe, asserting that the new administration's changes to detention and interrogation programs...

Saturday March 14, 2009

SSPX leader (heart) Pope Benedict

I may not have loved the pope's letter explaining his views and action regarding the SSPX controversy (as many have noted here) but the SSPX gave it two thumbs-up. Via Zenit.org, here is the full text of the statement from the superior-general...

Saturday March 14, 2009

Stem cell decision: "People need a fairy tale."

That is one quote that Peter Steinfels cites in his excellent column today, "In Stem Cell Debate, Moral Suasion Comes Up Short," about Obama's stem cell decision. (My critique here). A taste of Peter's focus: The more challenging objection -- again, not...

Friday March 13, 2009

The conservative future...?

The second story from the Sunday Styles is "Little Mr. Conservative," about 14-year-old Jonathan Krohn--the hot-ticket on the conservative circuit after his thrilling three-minute performance at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Bigger than Rush? Jonathan, a slight, home-schooled only...

Friday March 13, 2009

The liberal past...?

The "Sunday Styles" section of the NYT had two stories out front, which present stark contrasts, both unsettling. One is "Where to pass the torch?" about 70s-era abortion rights activists seeing the ambivalence or indifference of the younger generation of women,...

Friday March 13, 2009

Categories: Church , Politics, Pop Culture

The "invisible hand" of market-based morality

Newt Gingrich wants to pay pregnant teenagers to take prenatal vitamins and stay healthy so the government avoids expensive costs when babies end up in neonatal intensive care units.He also wants to pay poor children to read, and says...

Friday March 13, 2009

Vatican spokesman on the SSPX letter

Here is the official account of the statement by Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi, SJ, that accompanied the pope's letter of explanation on his remittance of the excommunications of the SSPX bishops: FR. LOMBARDI: POPE FEELS HIS RESPONSIBILITY AS PASTOR...

Thursday March 12, 2009

Michael Steele, RNC chair--and pro-choice Catholic?

GOP chairman Michael Steele has had his share of woes in the weeks since he was elected with the aim of re-making the party. He bowed down to Rush, got skewered by Comedy Central (and has yet to show...

Thursday March 12, 2009

New NYT op-ed columnist: Young, Catholic, and really smart

He's Ross Douthat, erstwhile Atlantic editor and blogger and a serious upgrade from William Kristol, who started badly--not entirely unexpectedly--and went down from there during his year-long stint, which ended--not entirely unexpectedly--a couple months back. I'd hoped that Douthat would...

Thursday March 12, 2009

Categories: Bishops, Catholic, Church , History, Pope

Cardinal Egan on celibacy: "A perfectly legitimate discussion."

New York's Cardinal Edward Egan a closet liberal? Who knew?! Well, he's out now. In a 30-minute interview with a NY radio show--part of Egan's valedictory tour as he prepares to leave office--His Eminence did indeed say that celibacy is "a...

Thursday March 12, 2009

Pope on the defensive...and it's not pretty

Benedict XVI's letter to the world's bishops (official text released today) was a good idea and probably inevitable, as no one was happy and the furor was not going away, inside the church from the highest echelons to the lowest. Did...

Thursday March 12, 2009

Pope's letter on SSPX excommunications: The official text

The official text, published today by the Vatican: LETTER OF HIS HOLINESS POPE BENEDICT XVI TO THE BISHOPS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH concerning the remission of the excommunication of the four Bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre Dear Brothers in the...

Wednesday March 11, 2009

"Assisted suicide" or "Assisted homicide"?

In Georgia, a sting operation snares members of the "Final Exit Network." The Times has the story, and it doesn't sound like euthanasia. On emotional issues like this, an over-the-top case can change the national discourse is this such a...

Wednesday March 11, 2009

Categories: Church , Politics, Pop Culture

Coulter v. Maher: The Blond leading the Blind

Or is it vice versa? I guess we'll have to wait for video of the 2009 Speaker Series, which features right-wing harridan Ann Coulter against left-wing God-baiter Bill Maher. Now there's a choice. The NYT has a story (and photos...

Tuesday March 10, 2009

Obama's stem cell flop

How many ways did Barack Obama go wrong in yesterday's policy change on stem cell research? Here are a few of the larger themes, and some able dissections of them: ONE: Why didn't Obama say more about the promise of...

Monday March 9, 2009

Categories: Bishops, Catholic, Church , Politics

Brazil abortion story update: "We are killing childhood"

Catholic News Service has the best coverage I've seen (no surprise) that clears up many of the confusions of the previous coverage (and in my post) about the nine-year-old Brazilian gril who was raped by her stepfather, impregnated with twins (she...

Monday March 9, 2009

Portrait of Shakespeare? Funny, he doesn't look Catholic...

Is this the only image of the Bard from life? Time magazine reports on the portrait, unveiled today in this newly-discovered--or rather attributed--portrait of William Shakespeare, whose likeness had heretofore never been rendered. (The NYT has a news update.) Shakespeare is...

Monday March 9, 2009

Obama as a Nazi? Bill Donohue goes there...

The Catholic League statement was prompted by today's stem cell research order. According to League president Bill Donohue: "Obama has stepped on a slope so slippery that many of his supporters may eventually regret he did so. It is not...

Monday March 9, 2009

Categories: Bishops, Catholic, Church , Politics

Obama splits the baby. And denounces cloning.

So in the earlier thread on Obama's stem cell order today, "Reaganite" took me to task for wondering about the possible paths Obama would choose: "Please don't pretend to us that there is any doubt or suspense in your mind...

Monday March 9, 2009

ARIS 2008: Americans are faith freelancers--Catholic adherence in decline

"Believing without belonging" has been the American religious mantra for years, and the real-time effects of that anti-"religion" (or anti-institution?) bias was never so apparent as in the latest American Religious Identification Survey. ARIS 2008 surveyed more than 50,000 Americans...

Sunday March 8, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , Politics

Stem cells: WWOD?

What will Obama do Monday morning when he announces a lifting of the ban on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research? He could add some conditions, which would perhaps mitigate some of the blow-back from the Christian (not...

Sunday March 8, 2009

Categories: Bishops, Catholic, Church , Politics

Nine-year-old girl raped by step-dad, has abortion: He is spared, excommunications for everyone else

That's the upshot of a story that is roiling Brazil, as a nine-year-old girl who was raped by her stepfather and became pregnant with twins received an abortion. There are conflicting reports as to whether the girl was excommunicated--this Irish Times...

Friday March 6, 2009

Faith as Stress-buster? See, Lent is good for you!

The latest neuroscientific study (such research may be the economy's lone growth industry) indicates that religious faith can help people chill when things go wrong--and that they will go wrong is one of life's few guarantees these days. According to this...

Friday March 6, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , History

Why Catholics fast--and why others do, too...

An article in the Arkansas Catholic, the paper of the Diocese of Little Rock, talks to Scripture scholars and others on why we fast and what we gain from the practice. It is called "Fasting out of love: God doesn't want a fulfilled...

Friday March 6, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , History, Pope

Thoughts for this Friday in Lent:

I gave a parish talk last night on conversion, and what it means--to me as a convert, to us as Catholics (especially during Lent), to the modern world, and what it meant to the first Christians of Jesus' day....

Thursday March 5, 2009

Vatican on Sebelius? Pax Romana...

The Holy See doesn't seem to be getting its rochet in a twist--yet--over Kathleen Sebelius. Religion News Service's man in Rome, Francis X. Rocca, writes in an RNS blog post titled "Vatican [heart] Obama?" that items in L'Osservatore Romano on...

Thursday March 5, 2009

Categories: Bishops, Catholic, Church , Politics

Naumann v. Sebelius: The Battle of the Kansans heats up

Kansas City Archbishop Joseph Naumann devotes his weekly column to Obama's choice of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a pro-choice Catholic, to be secretary of Health and Human Services. The column pretty well summarizes his disappointment and the history of their...

Wednesday March 4, 2009

Mahony: Williamson is persona non grata in LA

Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles has announced that Richard Williamson, the Holocaust-denying bishop of the right-wing SSPX sect, is "hereby banned from entering any Catholic church, school or other facility, until he and his group comply fully and unequivocally...

Tuesday March 3, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , Pop Culture

Welcome, Amy Welborn

Okay, so we got (or are getting) Newt Gingrich, we lost (or are losing) Lindsay Lohan, but the day finishes with the biggest free agent signing of the off-season as Beliefnet snares blogger extraordinaire Amy Welborn. Amy's longstanding site, "Charlotte...

Tuesday March 3, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , Pop Culture

Win some, lose some: Lindsay Lohan, born Catholic, to become Jewish

So we get Newt, and now lose Lindsay. I'm still trying to weigh the merits of the swap. Here's the story via The Daily Mail: Lindsay Lohan is converting to Judaism in a bid to prove her devotion to Jewish...

Tuesday March 3, 2009

Saint Newt? Gingrich to swim the Tiber

It's one heckuva parenthetical aside buried in the NYT Magazine's lengthy profile of Newt Gingrich. But here it is, in its entirety: (A Baptist since graduate school, Gingrich said he will soon convert to Catholicism, his wife's faith.) Wow. I'd...

Tuesday March 3, 2009

Saint Barack?

  Hey, they'll help cut down on the utility bills we can't pay... Andrew Sullivan has the "Face of the Day": An image of U.S. President Barack Obama depicted as a saint is seen on a ten inch tall votive...

Monday March 2, 2009

Categories: Bishops, Catholic, Church , Politics

Catholic conundrum: Conservatives like Obama

Obama's choice of Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius to be HHS secretary was long-rumored after Tom Daschle's withdrawal. But now that it's a fact it is likely to set off another round of the Catholic Culture Wars, since Sebelius is...

Monday March 2, 2009

The Fall of Rome? NY and sex abuse payouts

Behind all the justifiable hosannas for Archbishop Timothy Dolan as he prepares to take over as leader of the Archdiocese of New York is a looming financial crisis in the form of a bill in Albany that would lifte...

Friday February 27, 2009

Categories: Church , History, Pop Culture

Ideas for Lenten Practices

For many years this site, "Sacred Space," a ministry of the Irish Jesuits, has been one of my preferred sites for contemplation and prayer. Well, really the only one. Its simplicity and Ignatian orientation draw me back time and again,...

Thursday February 26, 2009

SSPX Bishop Williamson apologizes. Sort of...

The Holocaust-denying schismatic Traditionalist was just kicked out of Argentina, which seems unjust to me, despite Williamson's noxious views. Today, back in his native England, Wiliamson issued an apology, via ZENIT (an arm of the Legionaries, which has had its...

Tuesday February 24, 2009

Categories: Bishops, Catholic, Church , History, Pope

Pope Benedict criticizes the criticizers

The pontiff is taking unnamed critics to task, as per this CNS story, "Pope cautions against destructive polemics in the church." The pope, speaking in German at his noon blessing Feb. 22, asked for prayers to St. Peter so that...

Tuesday February 24, 2009

Lenten recession reflection: Jim Martin on "The Colbert Report"

Stephen Colbert wants to know why he should "jump on the poverty bandwagon" with the rest of us--and with those vowed religious who are ahead of the poverty curve (oh, and there's chastity and obedience, too). Jesuit Father Jim Martin...

Monday February 23, 2009

And the winner is...Tim Dolan! (Who knew?)

In perhaps the worst-kept secret in recent church history, Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan was named to succeed Cardinal Edward Egan in New York. Dolan confessed that he'd known for 9 or 10 days, which is a long time to keep...

Friday February 20, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , Pop Culture

The liturgical reforms of "30 Rock"

"Col-lapsed" Catholic Jack Donaghy, Alec Baldwin's character on "30 Rock," goes to Mass in a recent episode and is forced to improvise. Hilarious. I keep telling myself I have to start watching. My only must-see TV these days is "24."...

Thursday February 19, 2009

Bishop Tobin's chat with Obama: Did he really say that?

The journalistic device of the imaginary interview with a VIP or celebrity or dead person who you'll never be able to talk to in real life is a risky one, even for the best writers. Rhode Island Bishop Thomas Tobin...

Wednesday February 18, 2009

Sebelius to HHS: Pro-lifers on alert?

The New York Times is reporting that the mass-attending, barred-from-communion, pro-choice Catholic governor of Kansas, Kathleen Sebelius, is President Obama's pick to run the Department of Health & Human Services. She replaces Tom Daschle, another pro-choice Catholic--but with reservations--whose nomination...

Wednesday February 18, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , Pop Culture

Mickey Rourke's guardian angel

Lord knows the troubled actor needs one, and in one of the least-covered pre-Oscar stories you'll see in the runup to the Sunday night movie awards, Rourke tells Our Sunday Visitor about the New York priest who helped turn him...

Wednesday February 18, 2009

Pope meets Pelosi: Something for everyone

In a much-anticipated encounter, Benedict XVI met House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a private meeting at the Vatican. No photos--officially--and just a 15-minute chat after his weekly public audience. (Besides, Pelosi already got her baciamano shot last April.) And as...

Tuesday February 17, 2009

Holy Cards: The latest collectible

An Italian fellow named Graziano Toni from the northeastern Italian city of Faenza has catapulted holy card collecting into a serious hobby--he has 50,000 cards in his personal collection and has compiled about 2,000 of his finest ones in a...

Tuesday February 17, 2009

Categories: Bishops, Catholic, Church , Pope

Is this any way to run a railroad?

The Church's revenge on journalists? The paranoid in me suspects that's what is at work in the never-ending, almost-here, gotta-be-today anticipation of the announcement of a new New York archbishop. Today was DEFINITELY it. Rocco expected it: "Good morning...you might...

Monday February 16, 2009

Be careful what you pray for: Salma Hayek's tale

Revenge of the Good Catholic Girl: Movie star Salma Hayek tells why prayer works, and why you should never doubt the power of holy water. Key line: "Please God, give me some breasts. And he gave me them!" Hat tip--or...

Monday February 16, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , Pop Culture, Pope

Is the Devil in the details?

What do you see when you look at this picture of Pope Benedict XVI? I swear I didn't get it, and had to ask for help. But Catholics with more sensitive (or suspicious) eyeballs saw Devil's horns on the pope's...

Monday February 16, 2009

Vox populi moves Vatican: New Linz bishop withdraws

The Austrian priest whose appointment earlier this month caused an uproar due to his earlier remarks about Katrina being the fault of sinful Lousianians (among other things he said) has asked that his nomination as the new auxiliary bishop of...

Sunday February 15, 2009

Cross Purposes

Is Boston College Catholic? No, that's not a joke, at least not to those whose hackles start raising at the phrase "in the Jesuit tradition." But it seems BC, and specifically its president, Fr. William P. Leahy, SJ, are moving...

Saturday February 14, 2009

Categories: Church , Pop Culture

Does love conquer all? Religious affiliation still matters

About one in four Americans (27 percent) who are married or living with a partner are in "religiously mixed" relationships. That's the word for this Valentine's Day from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, which mined data from...

Friday February 13, 2009

SSPX: Did tough talk win papal concessions?

A fascinating in-house SSPX interview with Bishop Bernard Fellay, head of the schismatic right-wing order, shows he was taken by suprise by Benedict's sudden lifting of the excommunications. Why? As Reuters' Tom Heneghan has it in this FaithWorld post, Fellay...

Thursday February 12, 2009

Reax to Pope to Jews: "Could do better..."

That is certainly my sense of Benedict's address at the Vatican this morning to U.S. Jewish leaders. The meeting was the latest and probably last high-profile effort to soothe Jewish-Catholic relations in the wake of the pontiff's outreach to the...

Thursday February 12, 2009

Text of Pope's meeting with U.S. Jewish leaders

The official text, delivered in English, today: Dear Friends, I am pleased to welcome all of you today, and I thank Rabbi Arthur Schneier and Mr Alan Solow for the greetings they have addressed to me on your behalf. I...

Wednesday February 11, 2009

Prologue to Pope's meeting with Jewish leaders

In this story Reuters' Vaticanista Phil Pullella has the lowdown ahead of Thursday's critical meeting between Pope Benedict XVI and American Jewish leaders. Read transcripts of Pullella's interviews with leading members of the Jewish delegation, and see a timeline on...

Wednesday February 11, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , Pop Culture

Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes

Today is also the date, in 1858, that the Virgin Mary first appeared to Bernadette Soubirous in a grotto in Lourdes, in southwest France. During subsequent apparitions, Our Lady of Lourdes--as she came to be known--revealed various messages to Bernadette,...

Wednesday February 11, 2009

Buon compleanno, Citta' del Vaticano!

"All I want is a small corner of the earth where I am master," Pope Pius IX said in 1871, when the reunification of Italy had finally overwhelmed church resistance and the Papal States were no more. And a small...

Tuesday February 10, 2009

Categories: Bishops, Catholic, Church , Politics

Second thoughts: LA abuse story and Iraq vet

Last week I linked to a story from the LA CityBeat paper that was making the rounds indicating that the Archdiocese of Los Angeles was engaged in an awful-sounding legal strategy to deny a possible abuse victim recourse to the...

Monday February 9, 2009

What do musical tastes tell about a Bishop?

That's the question I was asking as I tried to parse the latest blog posting from Bishop Richard Williamson, the un-excommunicated SSPX bishop who has become the focus of p.r. efforts by both the Vatican and his own confreres, who...

Monday February 9, 2009

Williamson removed as head of SSPX seminary

SSPX leaders are continuing to quarantine the Holocaust-denying bishop, Richard Williamson. The Italian daily La Repubblica reports today that Williamson has been removed from the seminary in La Reja, outside Buenos Aries, which he had headed since 2003. What next?...

Saturday February 7, 2009

Pope to meet Jewish leaders, Vatican source says

In an important and I would think necessary step toward healing the Catholic-Jewish rift over the papal outreach to the SSPX, Benedict XVI is reportedly to meet next Thursday with leaders of the major Jewish organizations. A meeting with the...

Friday February 6, 2009

Has the purge begun?

Not only has the SSPX started removing questionable texts on Jews from their websites, but word is now that clergy who refuse to adopt a new line are also getting the boot. Rorate Caeli cites Italian sources reporting that Father...

Friday February 6, 2009

Categories: Bishops, Catholic, Church , Politics

Do they really want to go there?

In Los Angeles, the U.S. attorney, Thomas O'Brien, has opened a federal probe of Cardinal Roger Mahony that is based on some questionable legal reasoning. Even Mahony's foes concede that. But now it seems the LA Archdiocese is engaging in...

Friday February 6, 2009

"Recant?" Text of the Vatican statement on SSPX

News reports of the latest Vatican statement on the SSPX Traditionalists and their standing and what they must do to enter true full communion centered on the Holy See's demand that Bishop Richard Williamson, the most overt Holocaust denier, "recant."...

Thursday February 5, 2009

"The Mystery of the Jews" is no more...

The SSPX "Tradicals," whose anti-Semitic concoctions have landed their would-be new best friend, Pope Benedict XVI, in hot water, have apparently begun scrubbing the web of their worst musings. One article, "The Mystery of the Jews," which I posted about...

Thursday February 5, 2009

Egan leaving? "The piano is still here..."

The buzz is a roar. The race to succeed Cardinal Edward Egan is nearing the finish line. And the winner is...! "Who knows?", by a mile! Well, one sure bet is that the long-awaited announcement is nigh--Egan (he's the one...

Wednesday February 4, 2009

Georg Ratzinger: "Lay off my brother!"

Or that is more or less what the papstbruder told a German newspaper. Bild has the details on what Joseph's protective older brother said in the interview. (Georg is three years older; a sister, Maria, died in the early 1990s.)...

Wednesday February 4, 2009

Vaticanista Sandro Magister blames the Curia

This is how the preeminent Italian Vatican-watcher frames it: Double Disaster at the Vatican: Of Governance, and of Communication This is the upshot of the lifting of the excommunication for four Lefebvrist bishops. The isolation of Pope Benedict, the ineptitude...

Wednesday February 4, 2009

Bill Donohue blames "German guilt" for attacks on Pope

That's the typically pugnacious take of the head of the Catholic League in its latest release: "No one has been worse than the Germans. Reeking with guilt over the Holocaust, we now have the spectacle of German Chancellor Angela Merkel...

Wednesday February 4, 2009

Categories: Catholic, Church , Pop Culture

Michael Dubruiel, RIP

Michael Dubruiel, Catholic author and husband of the popular author and blogger Amy Welborn, father to their children, collapsed and died yesterday morning. As Amy wrote in a brief post last night: Michael collapsed this morning at the gym and...

Tuesday February 3, 2009

Cardinal George on Bishop Williamson: "Deeply offensive"

More reaction from the hierarchy, this time Stateside. Chicago Cardinal Francis George, president of the USCCB, issued this statement today: Statement of Cardinal Francis George, President USCCB Pope Benedict XVI has lifted the personal penalty of excommunication incurred by four...

Tuesday February 3, 2009

Father Maciel scandal: A father to more than his flock?

The late Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, the venerated and vilified founder of the powerful conservative Catholic order, the Legionaries of Christ, may have been a father in the biological as well. At American Papist, Thomas Peters confirms rumors circulating in...

Tuesday February 3, 2009

The Pope and the Jews: A failure to communicate?

The Catholic "silence" over Benedict XVI's self-made SSPX fiasco was raised earlier, with a focus on the relative absence of strong American voices. But overseas, at least, and from the Pope's native Germany in particular, objections are being raised as...

Tuesday February 3, 2009

Pope to Israel? An "optimistic" Jewish voice

Raymond Cohen, a top expert on relations between Israel and the Holy See, thinks Benedict's planned visit this May to the Holy Land could happen. Cohen, a professor of international relations at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is at Boston College...

Monday February 2, 2009

Confessions of an ex-Traditionalist

This does not come from an angry ex-con-turned-lib, but from Austin Ruse, a stalwart of orthodoxy who writes regularly at The Catholic Thing. His latest column, "Up from Traditionalism," is a must-read in light of the SSPX-Pope Benedict XVI controversies....

Monday February 2, 2009

America's new national pastime?

I mean football, not Catholic-bashing--though any faithful Catholic should be outraged at this morning's Super Bowl headlines announcing "Steelers beat Cardinals." I will look for Bill Donohue's righteous anger at some point today. ("Would The New York Times have allowed...

Sunday February 1, 2009

"Katrina was New Orleans' fault"--another new Benedict bishop

Oy vey. Benedict has just appointed a new auxiliary bishop in the Austrian diocese of Linz--the Rev. Gerhard Maria Wagner, 54, who thinks Katrina was punishment for New Orleans' sins (and he hates "Harry Potter", too). As Rocco notes, Linz...

Sunday February 1, 2009

Silence and the SSPX: Where are the Catholic voices?

Given the never-ending debate over Pope Pius XII and whether he was "silent" during the Nazi extermination of the Jews--or just prudent, as other claim--one woud think bishops across the world, and especially in the United States, would be speaking...

Sunday February 1, 2009

SSPX: A "pattern of anti-Semitism"

That's the only conclusion one can come to, I think, and that's the one Fr. Jim Martin arrives at in his post examining a sampling of the "gibberish" (Cardinal Kasper's words) on the SSPX sites. Fr. Martin links to one...

Friday January 30, 2009

Galileo gets his due...

Pope John Paul II had already "rehabilitated" the astonomer, condemned by the Inquisition in 1633. But as we approach his 450th birthday on Feb. 15, the Vatican is pulling out the stops for Galileo Galilei, the Italian scientist who proved...

Friday January 30, 2009

Bishop Williamson: From the Whale's Mouth

Bishop Richard Williamson, one of the four newly-rehabbed Rad-Trad bishops at the heart of the furor over their anti-Semitic, Holocaust-denying views and Pope Benedict's outreach to them, has apologized--sort of. Williamson has written to Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos, Benedict's point man...

Friday January 30, 2009

Categories: Bishops, Catholic, Church , Politics

FOCA Follies

In the wake of Barack Obama's election victory, the pro-life movement seemed thoroughly disorganized, if not dispirited--until salvation arrived in the form of the Freedom of Choice Act, a.k.a. FOCA--a bill that would coerce Catholics into performing abortions, force the...

Thursday January 29, 2009

Another Holocaust-denying SSPX leader

This time an Italian priest with the inimitable name of "Abrahamowicz." (As they say in the newspaper biz, you can't make this stuff up--hard as we might try.) Indeed, Fr. Floriano Abrahamowicz, a pastor and spokesperson for the Society of...

Thursday January 29, 2009

Bishop Williamson: We win!

That's more or less the sense one gets from reading the latest column, "The Re-Incommunication," from the most notorious of the rehabilitated schismatic bishops, Richard Williamson. Williamson, an English-born convert from Anglicanism, has been the poster bishop for the ultra-Tradtionalist...

Thursday January 29, 2009

And now for something completely different...

Over at dotCommonweal, Fr. Komonchak started a caption contest for this shot from Wednesday's General Audience. The lion cub came courtesy of the Medrano Circus, whose acrobats apparently performed a little something for the pontiff. Amy Welborn also has a...

Wednesday January 28, 2009

Catholic-Jewish relations continue to deteriorate

The Chief Rabbinate of Israel has broken ties with the Vatican. Though there may be some hope in light of the pope's comments earlier today. Here's the AP story: JERUSALEM - Israel's chief rabbinate severed ties with the Vatican on...

Wednesday January 28, 2009

Benedict XVI explains his SSPX strategy--such as it is

The post below focused on accounts of Benedict XVI's statements vis-a-vis Judaism and the SSPX rehabilitation effort which has ocassioned such controversy and pain. But the CNS story that just moved focuses on his remarks at the general audience on...

Wednesday January 28, 2009

Elie Wiesel: "The Vatican did it intentionally."

"What the intention was, I don't know." That's the reaction from Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel, in an exclusive interview with Reuters about the furor over the rehabilitation of the anti-Semitic Traditionalists. Powerful stuff, strong words that need to...

Wednesday January 28, 2009

Pope in damage control mode

At today's weekly general (public) audience, Pope Benedict XVI weighed in with remarks aimed at distancing himself from the Holocaust denials of one of the recently un-excommunicated ultra-right "Tradical" bishops. Here's the AP account: VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI...

Monday January 26, 2009

Kasper not so friendly to Williamson

Cardinal Walter Kasper, the German prelate who heads the Vatican's ecumenical office, has called Holocaust-denying statements by one of the newly-rehabbed right-wing bishops "stupid" and "unacceptable." Cardinal Kasper--a pastorally-minded man who was touted as "Kasper the Friendly Pope" by oddmakers...

Monday January 26, 2009