Each week my neighbors and I engage in a curious ethical ritual. On Wednesday morning before we leave for work we set outside our doors an artifact that expresses our obligation to the welfare of future generations. We call these objects recycling bins. Recycling is one example of an action that we take in the present to benefit a group in the future. … Continue Reading »
Judging by the impassioned commentary from some Catholic quarters during recent confrontations between unionized public-sector workers and state governments, you’d think we were back in 1919, with the Church defending the rights of wage slaves laboring in sweat shops under draconian working conditions… . Continue Reading »
I first suspected America was developing an ideological toxemia in 2004. That was the year the mainstream media, obsessed with the collegiate records of President George W. Bush, remained incurious to a fault about the school transcripts of his Democrat opponent, Senator John Kerry. Reason whispered that the same press gleefully citing the “gentleman’s C’s” that proved Bush too stupid to be president … Continue Reading »
The recent brouhaha over Rob Bell’s new book, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, reminds me of why I’m not at home among exclusivists or universalists. If forced to choose, I would sit at the hearth of exclusivists any day of the week, as their message does a better job of cohering with the scandal of the gospel… . Continue Reading »
Founded in 1992, the Tertio Millennio Seminar on the Free Society brings two dozen young people from central and eastern Europe together with twelve or so of their American counterparts to explore the principles and prospects of building free and virtuous societies. Pope John Paul II’s social encyclical Centesimus Annus serves as the intellectual scaffolding for the seminar’s work… . Continue Reading »
Save the date. On May 21, 2011, my brother is getting married. Or Christ will return to the earth to pronounce final judgment. It depends on whom you ask. According to my brother and his lovely bride-to-be, it will be the former, according to radio evangelist Harold Camping, the latter… . Continue Reading »
Catholics today are encouraged to give up for Lent “favorite things” that are often less tangible than “whiskers on kittens” and “warm woollen mittens.” But there is something important to be said for the traditional practice of giving up meat. I have been abstaining from meat on Fridays and through Lent for about five years and have discovered … Continue Reading »
On March 20, or Adar II 14 on the Jewish calendar, Jews around the world will observe Purim, a joyous celebration of the deliverance of the Jews of the Persian Empire from annihilation more than 2,400 years ago. However, for the Jews of modern Persia … Continue Reading »
It annoys me to no end, church leaders occasionally given to touting political influence within the circles of government. Hubristic self-service is a phrase that comes uncharitably to mind. Put not your trust in princes is another. So there was a press release some little while back in early February from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America announcing the coming appointment of Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson to the Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships… . Continue Reading »
It seems everyone would like to be Irish in the month of March. The celebration of St. Patrick’s Day has, with the help of Hallmark and the local pub, become a monthlong event. Even beer and bagels”two things that should never be green”become miraculously emerald in hue around the 17th of March… . Continue Reading »
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