Matthew Cantirino interviews artist and art historian Wayne Roosa:

Q: So how do you see your faith and your art interacting, ideally?

A: That question is important but it can lead into ways of thinking that become cul-de-sacs. First of all, every artist who is also a thoughtful person has beliefs—a faith—about what we are and what it means to be here and to act and express. This is as true of a strict materialist as it is of a theist.

Also today, Ashley Crouch on the feminist shaming of fertility:

In 1920, Margaret Sanger authored a book entitled Women and the New Race the opening line of which states: “The most far-reaching social development of modern times is the revolt of women against sex servitude. This ‘sex servitude’ is the biological slavery of women to their reproductive systems.” Fertility came to be viewed as biological slavery rather than a natural human capacity, and this new view ushered in radical cultural change, both good and bad.

George Weigel on the possibility of Vatican III:

One wag to whom I mentioned this conundrum spoke of a future council as “Metroplex I,” with the Council Fathers, the observers, the advisers, the translators, and all the rest of the apparatus meeting in Cowboys Stadium, graciously donated for the occasion by Jerry Jones. Bad jokes aside, however, the fact that the world episcopate has doubled in number over the past 50 years raises important questions for the future. How can this large a body function as the episcopal “college” of Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church? Is it possible to imagine a “virtual council,” or some other technological mechanism that would allow the world episcopate to meet as a whole?

Also today, Howard P. Kainz on how the GOP fails to connect the dots on contraception:

A little logic will show why the public, massively using contraception, is becoming more and more accepting of gay marriage, and laws permitting it—thus completely redefining the concept of marriage, which has from time immemorial been heterosexual and family-oriented. For if intentionally non-procreative sex is permissible for married couples, on the basis of their love and commitment, with or without an intention of eventually raising children, there is no reason to prohibit such liaisons for gay couples.

Michael Gemignani on the role of hospice in assisting a good death:

The same death that is viewed as a good death for some may be a devastating loss for others. Even hospice cannot be all things to all those affected by the terminal illness of a loved one. But I do offer the following as elements of a good death, elements that were blessedly present to me in Carol’s last days.

Dino Marcantonio asks how would St. Germanus site your church?

For St. Germanus, praying toward the east meant that at Mass, the priest and assembly were both on the same side of the altar. The priest was not facing the people; all faced God together. Likewise, church buildings, including St. Germanus’ Hagia Sophia, were commonly orientated, that is, the front doors were located toward the west and the sanctuary was located toward the east.

Also today, Howard P. Kainz on the weirdness of commanding love:

The greatest commandment, Jesus tells us, is: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Well, of course. But a commandment?

Russell E. Saltzman reviews What a Young Husband Ought to Know:

In my last column, I reviewed What a Young Wife Ought to Know (1901) by Emma Drake. It was part of a “sex and self” series that focused on what a young woman should do to establish a successful Victorian-like home at the turn of the last American century and one of two books my wife plucked off the shelf at a used book store. She spent eight dollars for the pair. I may have mumbled about more antiquarian books coming into the house but that ended right after I found a copy ofYoung Wife selling on eBay for thirty-eight dollars.

George Weigel on religious seekers versus finders:

On the Solemnity of the Epiphany, I heard a sermon—a rather well-delivered one at that—about the Magi as religious “seekers.” The same note, I’ll wager, was struck from pulpits and ambos across the country, perhaps across the world.

But isn’t there something a bit askew here?

Isn’t the point of Matthew’s tale of the “wise men from the East” (Matthew 2:1) that they were finders, not just seekers? Moreover, isn’t the further point that what was found was “he who has been born king of the Jews,” to whom they, gentiles from afar, wished to offer gifts? Don’t we lose the evangelical thrust of this charming story of seers, stars and caravans, “gold and frankincense and myrrh” (Matthew 2:11), when we focus on the seeking, not the finding, which was the first moment of messianic encounter with the gentile world (meaning most-of-us)?

Elizabeth Scalia on Obamacare’s great gift:

Recently we have learned that under Obamacare—that is, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—employer insurance plans must provide free non-medical contraception, abortifacients, and sterilization for their employees.

Free is as affordable as it gets; for an accountability-spurning culture, it’s just the right price, indeed. Let us pay nothing in order to beget nothing and, says this government, let us force those interfering “churchy” institutions—who keep insisting that there is something worth contemplating beyond ourselves—to pick up the tab, for good measure.

Thomas Hibbs reviews the new film Young Adult:

The new film Young Adult, the latest from the writer/director team of Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody of Juno fame, features Charlize Theron as Mavis Gary, a writer of young adult fiction living in the Twin Cities who returns to the small town of Mercury, MN to relive her glory days as a high school prom queen and to reclaim her former beau, Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson). Although it is not without its funny moments, Young Adult is hardly a pleasant film. Yet it is a compelling and instructive one; in a Hollywood culture that celebrates perpetual adolescence, Young Adult is a rarity, an unsparing depiction of what it is like to remain trapped in adolescent fantasy.

Peter Leithart on a tale of two imperialisms:

It is common these days to read the Bible as an anti-imperial epic, the story of God and Israel, then (for Christians) God and Jesus, against empire. “Come out, come out from Babylon, my people!” is the theme.

It’s a hard sell for all sorts of reasons. Jeremiah urges the people of Judah to enter not exit Babylon (Jeremiah 27, 29). Isaiah invests Cyrus the Persian conqueror with Davidic titles—he is the Lord’s “servant” and “shepherd” and “anointed one” (Isaiah 44-45). Heroes like Joseph, Daniel, and Mordecai end up as chief advisors to emperors. In Scripture, there is no such thing as “empire” but only empires, and they are not all the same. Some are Babels, some beasts; some are rods of discipline, some provide refuge for the people of God.

Rebecca Oas on the ethical use of stem cell therapies:

Solid ethical argument will be centered upon the recognition that some research methods disregard the dignity and integral good of the person while other methods uphold it. It is essential that the basis of our arguments against embryonic stem cell research be made primarily, if not exclusively, on the fact that innocent human life is taken. Evil acts must be rejected regardless of their real or potential efficacy in producing a desired effect. As Blessed John Paul II wrote in Veritatis Splendor, “Only the act in conformity with the good can be a path that leads to life.”

Also today, Tim Kelleher on doubt and the Nicene Creed:

Recently, I directed a film for First Things that is a consideration of the Nicene Creed. The process of making it opened my eyes to how—in the words of participant Luke Timothy Johnson—“under-examined, under-appreciated and under-utilized” an instrument it is. I heard people speak candidly about their relationships to the Creed. More than a few expressed concern that they don’t always fire on all twelve cylinders; that perhaps it is dishonest to stand up on any given Sunday, and struggle to give equal emphasis to all twelve articles. We might respond to this concern with the parallel of how our bodies work.

George Weigel on child sacrifice in 21st century America:

It was supposed to be a country in which women were liberated; it became a country in which women were ever more the victims of predatory and sexually irresponsible men, left alone with their “rights” to find a technological “fix” to the dilemma of unwanted pregnancy. It was supposed to become a more humane country; it became a country in which morally coarsened pundits can describe as “extreme” and “weird” the faith-filled response of the Santorum family to the loss of a newborn shortly after birth. It was supposed to be a country of greater equality; it became a country in which the fantasies of those who believed that America was for white Anglo-Saxon Protestants only, with emphasis on “white,” were realized beyond the wildest imaginings of the most crazed racists and eugenicists of the 1920s.

Also today, Archbishop José H. Gomez says its time for for Catholic action and Catholic voices:

Last Thursday in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI delivered a remarkable address to a group of visiting American bishops. He praised America’s founders for their commitment to religious liberty and their belief that Judeo-Christian moral teachings are essential to shaping citizens and democratic institutions. The Holy Father warned that our heritage of religious freedom faces “grave threats” from the “radical secularism” of political and cultural opinion leaders who are “increasingly hostile to Christianity.”

Elizabeth Scalia wonders why there is no more great oratory:

There are no more grand orators in America, and nothing could illustrate that better than the sometimes incoherent, woefully delivered remarks made in the days before and after King’s holiday. Attempting to analyze Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent address to the United Nations, writer Russell Shaw quotes a not-untypical muddled passage–one that reads like the first half of the “Barney” song, as explained to lobotomized apes—and writes, “With all due respect, what on earth does [it] mean? The strikingly confused venture into reasoning in this passage would provide rich material for a logician’s intellectual scalpel.”

Also today, Carson Holloway defends ambition in his response to Anthony Esolen’s October 2011 First Things essay:

No doubt ambition is a dangerous thing, but Esolen’s remark here is an error. This excessive condemnation is inconsistent with common sense, with the classical and biblical tradition on which Esolen draws in his criticisms of Greenblatt, and even, I think, with Shakespeare as well. It is, moreover, a practically harmful mistake, one that undermines the classical and biblical tradition’s power to inform and improve our present culture.

Russell E. Saltzman on “What a Young Wife Ought to Know”:

Wife and Number Two daughter should not be left unattended in used book stores. That’s how we ended up with the latest additions to our growing array of used (and all but used up) books: What a Young Wife Ought to Know (1901) and a companion volume, What a Young Husband Ought to Know (1897). Both were part of a “Sex and Self” series on how to live a successful Victorian middle class life.

George Weigel on Václav Havel and us:

Václav Havel, who died this past Dec. 18, was one of the great contemporary exponents of freedom lived nobly. His moral mettle proved true in both the world of ideas and the world of affairs; indeed, few men of the past half-century have moved more surely between those two worlds. In that respect, and for his personal courage, Havel reminded me of one of the American Founders—if, that is, one could imagine James Madison hanging out with Frank Zappa.

Also today, Matthew Cantirino considers whether the European Union is a Catholic plot:

One of the more fascinating conspiracy theories surrounding the movement toward European integration is the allegation that it’s all a Vatican plot. Of course, spend enough time digging around online and it becomes apparent that the Pope has a hand in just about all significant world events. But this particular accusation, which has cropped up again and again, has a bit more tenacity than the average Internet rumor, and the degree of overlap among the conspiracy peddlers here is rather striking . . .

Elizabeth Scalia on prosperity’s constant conflict:

Though our impoverished origins were centuries established, the only remaining connection to them is in our church, and for many of our siblings and cousins that is a tenuous connection, indeed, for prosperity and good fortune rarely prompt us to worship anything beyond ourselves and our stuff; we do not often fall to our knees in thanksgiving, or with a heart opened to surrendering all that stuff in exchange for a whole life full of Christ.

In pondering the boxes of Christmas, and packing up that cracked lantern, I did not feel like the queen of all I surveyed; rather, I felt robbed of something, and ruled over; owned by ownership.

R.R. Reno on the Wall Street Journal’s libertarian blinders:

I have long suspected that free-market libertarians aren’t all that different from postmodern relativists who insist that human beings have no natural end, no normative patterns for life. Some recent editorials in the Wall Street Journal confirmed my suspicions. Last Monday, in advance of the New Hampshire primary, a staff editorial assessed Rick Santorum’s economic message, giving him a mixed review.

Also today, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus’s 2002 remembrance of Martin Luther King, Jr.:

I know it is a fact, but it is nonetheless hard to picture: Had he lived, Martin Luther King, Jr. would now be seventy-three years old. Everybody of a certain age has memories, if only of television images; many were there when he spoke, others marched with him in Selma or Montgomery, and some of us were, albeit intermittently, drawn into his personal orbit. The last I count as one of the many graces of my life, and it no doubt explains why I read, almost compulsively, just about everything published about the man and the time.

Peter J. Leithart on the poetry of sex:

Medieval Christians were obsessed with the Song of Songs. No book of the Bible received such intensely devoted attention in commentary and preaching. Bernard of Clairvaux preached eighty-six homilies on the Song and died just as he was getting started on chapter 3. The Song has a much-diminished place in the modern Christian imagination. The time is far past to reverse that trend, but it is worth reversing only if the Song is recovered as allegory.

Matthew J. Franck on what comes after Hosanna-Tabor:

Yesterday’s unanimous Supreme Court decision in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, upholding a small Lutheran school’s right to control its employment of “commissioned ministers” on its teaching staff, is very good news indeed for religious freedom. Congratulations are due to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, to Professor Douglas Laycock of the University of Virginia (who teamed up with Becket in representing the school), and to writers of supportive amicus briefs.

George Weigel on converts to Catholicism and the “symphony of truth”:

If there is a thread running through these diverse personalities, it may be this: that men and women of intellect, culture and accomplishment have found in Catholicism what Blessed John Paul II called the “symphony of truth.” That rich and complex symphony, and the harmonies it offers, is an attractive, compelling and persuasive alternative to the fragmentation of modern and post-modern intellectual and cultural life, where little fits together and much is cacophony.

Also today, Christopher J. Clay on the moral blindness of sexual harassment training:

Sexual harassment training programs are not in short supply. Three states mandate them. Two well-publicized Supreme Court cases prescribe the programs as quasi-vaccines against the maladies of liability and damages. For that reason, countless insurance companies force policyholders to herd employees into PowerPoint-based education sessions conducted by human resources personnel. There is also a cottage industry of consultants offering these courses, mostly in the mandating states.

Elizabeth Scalia on bringing death into the light:

Death, for the people of that era, and every era before, was no stranger and brought no squeamishness. There was nothing mysterious about death beyond those questions we still ask—will we see them again in the next life, and why, so often, do the good die young while old bastards hold forth for far too long? A family mourned and drank, and fought and keened and then stumbled into church for the funeral; they buried their beloved and stumbled about some more, and life went on.

Leroy Huizenga on the media’s misunderstanding of Pope Benedict:

The Pope’s message for the 45th World Day of Peace, New Year’s Day, was released a couple weeks early on Friday, December 16, by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. Francis X. Rocca wrote a piece the Huffington Post entitled, “Pope Benedict Peace Message Calls for Wealth Redistribution” [sic]. While strictly true, the title was taken from one brief phrase within a long sentence deep in the piece that was (ironically) juxtaposed to a brief phrase about the promotion of growth.

Kathryn Walker reviews Raised Right:

Sometimes it’s hard to understand why young people deviate from the conservative mentalities of their parents during their young adult years, but Raised Right: How I Untangled my Faith from Politics offers an explanation for the switch. Recounting experiences of faith and politics through childhood into young adult years, Raised Right is an early memoir, chronicling Alisa Harris’ leap, like that of many young people, across the political divide from right to left.

Also today, Michael Hannon on vocation and discernment:

In so many Christian contexts today, it is almost impossible to avoid hearing about the importance of discerning one’s “personal vocation.” This label, apparently, is meant to denote the specific calling God gives to each individual, through which each is to live out his own particular call to holiness. Yet this language reflects only a half-truth. We are indeed meant to follow the will of God in all that we do. But such popular talk of one’s “calling” also betrays a crucial misunderstanding of discernment, a cardinal error that is entirely foreign to the great tradition of the Church.

Russell E. Saltzman on child safety and regulations on American farms:

The U.S. Department of Labor has proposed new regulations that will address child labor on farms. Among the proposed rules, paid child workers (these could be kids employed by their own families) under the age of fifteen would not be allowed to operate tractors, combines, ATVs, or most other power-driven equipment without special certification. No one under eighteen could work around grain elevators, feed lots, or livestock auctions. And no texting while tractoring; no iPod or walkie-talkie use, either.

George Weigel on breaking (more) bad liturgical habits:

As I remarked late last year, the introduction of the third edition of the Roman Missal and the new translations of the liturgical texts offer the entire English-speaking Church an opportunity to correct some bad liturgical habits that have developed over the past four decades. The point of these corrections is neither liturgical prissiness nor aesthetic nostalgia; there is no “reform of the reform” to be found in lace surplices, narrow fiddleback chasubles, and massive candles. The point of correcting bad habits is to celebrate the Novus Ordo of Paul VI with dignity and beauty, so that Holy Mass is experienced for what it is: our participation in the liturgy of saints and angels in heaven—where, I am quite confident, they don’t sing treacly confections like “Gather Us In.”

Andrew Doran on Newt Gingrich, the Potomac, and the Tiber:

In a recent debate, Gingrich referred to the Arab Spring as an “anti-Christian Spring,” signaling that the status of Middle Eastern Christians might become the centerpiece of his foreign policy toward the Muslim world. The fate of Middle Eastern Christians has never figured prominently in American foreign policy, despite foreseeable consequences that have led to destructive genocide in places like Iraq. This political indifference is in no small measure attributable to the fact that American Christians have expressed little affinity for their fellow Christians in the Muslim world. The Catholic Church has been virtually alone in its advocacy on their behalf. Gingrich’s expression of concern may, then, have been less an obscure policy reference than a deliberate decision to propel this issue to the forefront of his foreign policy toward the Muslim world–a decision rooted in Catholic thought and culture.

Also today, Robert P. George and Jennifer S. Bryson with an open letter to David Caton about TLC’s All-American Muslim:

As pro-life and pro-family Christians, we support and applaud the purposes of the Florida Family Association (FFA) as set forth in your organization’s mission statement: to “educate people on what they can do to defend, protect and promote traditional, biblical values.” We are writing now, however, in a spirit of respect and brotherhood, to urge you prayerfully to reconsider your position on the question of the television show All American Muslim on The Learning Channel (TLC).