Matthew Cantirino

As Matthew Schmitz notes in an earlier post , a furious effort is now being mounted to challenge the official proposal for an Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, DC. But before critics are accused of ‘having nothing to offer themselves,’ consider the National Civic Art Society’s . . . . Continue Reading »

Are there any signs of hope in contemporary artistic expression? Anthony Domestico thinks so, and his recent post at dotCommonweal dissecting some trends in what might be called sub-popular (or “popular indie”) music points out a few examples which should force the curmudgeons to think . . . . Continue Reading »

King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia plans to open an “interreligious and intercultural dialogue center” in Vienna, Austria, it was reported this past week. The plan immediately met with a cool response from some prominent Jews and Catholics, whose respective faiths are virtually . . . . Continue Reading »

Relations between the Obama administration and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops haven’t exactly been smooth, to say the least. For the past several years, beginning with the battle over the “Stupak amendment” and running through the ongoing dispute over the . . . . Continue Reading »

As Joe noted earlier , yesterday marked the 49 th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council. Of course, determining the precise ‘effects’ of Vatican II can be a perilous venture, not only because it involves the task of historical analysis, but also because it is so . . . . Continue Reading »

Poland held parliamentary elections this past weekend, but the biggest story was not the re-election of the incumbent centrist government (a first for the country since the fall of communism). Rather, it was the come-from-nowhere third place finish of Janusz Palikot’s party, a . . . . Continue Reading »

It seems that some commentators can barely contain their excitement at the prospect of the Occupy Wall Street protests becoming a counterpart to the Tea Party, or an ‘American Fall’ riposte to the ‘Arab Spring’. On paper, it seems like they’ve picked a winner. And in . . . . Continue Reading »

The Supreme Court will soon hear “one of the most important religious cases in decades,” according to a pre-trial analysis in today’s Washington Post . The case, Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School vs. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission , arose from a Michigan . . . . Continue Reading »

Readers may want to put on their radar a volume (really an extended bibliography) that attempts to catalogue the complete written works of Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ. Titled The Legacy of Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J.: His Words and His Witness , the compendium has recently been released by Fordham . . . . Continue Reading »

More conflict over expressions of faith in the (literal) public square, this time from a less-expected angle: a Jewish group’s recent plans to erect a sukkah in a public park in the TriBeCa neighborhood of Manhattan has generated opposition from the local community board. The traditional . . . . Continue Reading »