April Letters

From the April 2006 Print Edition

Defining Davidson Down Christoph Cardinal Schönborn (“The Designs of Science,” January) writes that “modern science first excludes a priori final and formal causes, then investigates nature under the reductive mode of mechanism (efficient and material causes), and then turns . . . . Continue Reading »

Briefly Noted 3

From the March 2006 Print Edition

The Mind of the Master Class: History and Faith in the Southern Slaveholders’ Worldview. by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene Genovese. Cambridge University Press. 828 pp. $31.99. In his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln remarked that Northerners and Southerners “read the same . . . . Continue Reading »

March Letters 81

From the March 2006 Print Edition

Godly Science Michael Behe’s elucidation of the social pressures on Catholic scientists to conform to a naturalistic explanation for all phenomena (“Scientific Orthodoxies,” December 2005) mirrors very accurately my experience as a former evolutionary geologist who eventually rejected the . . . . Continue Reading »

Briefly Noted 2

From the February 2006 Print Edition

Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. By Anne Rice. Knopf. 321 pp. $25.95. Appalling. That’s the word that kept echoing through my mind as I turned the pages of Anne Rice channeling the seven-year-old Jesus Christ in her twenty-seventh novel, the first since her recent return to the Christianity of . . . . Continue Reading »

February Letters 80

From the February 2006 Print Edition

Speaking of Law In his review of Steven D. Smith’s work (“Law & Language,” November), Justice Scalia gets it not so much wrong as incomplete when it comes to his account of the nature of meaning. Using examples from linguistically challenged bridegrooms to typing monkeys, . . . . Continue Reading »

Briefly Noted 1

From the January 2006 Print Edition

In Tiers of Glory: The Organic Development of Catholic Church Architecture Through the Ages. By Michael S. Rose. Mesa Folio. 136 pp. $29.95. A few years back, Michael S. Rose wrote Ugly As Sin, a fine denunciation of the sterility of contemporary Catholic church architecture and the damage it has . . . . Continue Reading »

January Letters 79

From the January 2006 Print Edition

Randomness and Intelligent Design The controversy resulting from Cardinal Schönborn’s opinion article in the New York Times has engaged, among others, faithful and well-informed Catholics who nonetheless disagree with each other on matters of substance. In his criticism of Cardinal . . . . Continue Reading »

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From the December 2005 Print Edition

Wicca’s Charm: Understanding the Spriritual Hunger Behind the Rise of Modern Witchcraft and Pagan Spirituality. By Catherine Edwards Sanders. Shaw. 256 pp. $13.99 paper. Catherine Edwards Sanders argues that modern women turn to witchcraft and Goddess-worship because they find Christianity . . . . Continue Reading »

2005 December Letters

From the December 2005 Print Edition

Executing Justice Joseph Bottum’s prudential claim (“Christians and the Death Penalty,” August/September) that Christians must deny secular democracies the right to enact stories of high justice is challenging and attractive. After all, who wants to grant civil authorities who cannot bring . . . . Continue Reading »