I met Aaron Kheriaty, M.D., while working on a wire service story about the Psychiatry and Spirituality Forum at the University of California, Irvine, which he directs in addition to serving as director of residency training and medical education in the department of psychiatry. When my son Gabriel died by suicide the day after I submitted that 2008 story, Aaron was the first person I called… . Continue Reading »
If the conclave of 2005 was about continuity”extending the legacy of John Paul II by electing his closest theological advisor as his successor”the conclave of 2013 was about governance. The College of Cardinals came to Rome convinced that the incapacities of the Roman Curia over the previous eight years had become a serious obstacle to the Church’s evangelical mission … Continue Reading »
George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, as has often been pointed out, imagined two very different dystopias. In 1984, written just after the Second World War, Orwell depicts the forces that held people captive as fundamentally external: coercion, espionage, laws, constraints, threats, lies, the state. By contrast, Huxley’s Brave New World, published just after the Wall Street crash had turned the excess of the twenties into the Great Depression of the thirties, portrays a future in which people are enslaved to forces within themselves … Continue Reading »
Last Tuesday’s March for Marriage contained many of the standard elements for a socially conservative protest march. There were young families pushing strollers, some Catholic parishes that rented buses, youthful nuns praying. In short, it was easy to view as a smaller scale version of the March for Life. But one thing was conspicuous about the participants: It was a majority-minority group… . Continue Reading »
Michael Voris’ “FBI (Faith Based Investigation) into Homosexuality,” a 94-minute video he recently released on his website ChurchMilitant.tv, was not easy for me to watch. It is harder for me to review. I’m tempted to rip into its bloody meat and leave behind a mangled carcass as a warning to others who might desire to make something similar. To do so, however, would be to misunderstand what Voris’ presentation is … Continue Reading »
She was called a “messenger of the love of Christ,” awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and beatified by the Holy See. But for most people, she is simply Mother Teresa, one of the most admired women of modern times. Born as Agnes Bojaxhiu in Macedonia in 1910, Blessed Teresa came to public attention relatively late in life, but when she did, her impact was profound … Continue Reading »
Stopping by my local Barnes & Noble store several years ago, I counted ninety-two Amish romance novels. My local Christian bookstore had sixty-six. More formal research for my book about Amish romance fiction confirmed what my bookstore visits first suggested: The sales of Amish-themed romance novels are as brisk as an Amish buggy is slow… . Continue Reading »
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