There’s been a great deal of commentary about the attempted assassination of Congresswaman Gabrielle Giffords and the deadly rampage that followed, with some eager to pin blame on pugnacious conservative rhetoric, and others denying the link. At The New Republic David Rieff offers a sharply . . . . Continue Reading »
I am part of what may have been the last generation of English-speaking Christians to grow up with the King James Version of the Bible. This was the Bible we read in church and it shaped the liturgical patterns of our worship. We children memorized verses from it in sunday school, thereby giving it . . . . Continue Reading »
There had been a long tradition of giving your newborn a saint’s name if you were Catholic. And so you had a slew of Dominics, a passel of Anthonys, a clutch of Patricks, a synonym for “buncha” Peters, Pauls, and Marys. (Puritans preferred more biblical names, like Prudence, . . . . Continue Reading »
1. For those who have expressed a kind of Porcher concern that I would die if snowed in, be reassured that, because the power stayed on, I have survived. It’s true that I lack Porcher/motorcycle maintenance skills, but they probably won’t be missed this time. The private road outside my . . . . Continue Reading »
In the latest issue of Dappled Things , Robert T. Miller argues that Catholic moral theology should abandon the concept of human dignity as the basis for morality in favor of a virtue-theoretic one based on the final end for man. I may be missing some subtle theological nuances, but it appears to . . . . Continue Reading »
Well, what’s wrong with it? Doesn’t the professor who faces criminal charges for having sex with his adult doctor have constitutional rights? Isn’t it true (see LAWRENCE v. TEXAS) that two autonomous persons can express themselves any way they please as long as what they do is . . . . Continue Reading »
Last week I reflected on the genius of Solzhenitsyn’s great novel, In the First Circle . Some readers weighed in on other aspects of Solzhenitsyn’s thought, especially his famous Harvard Address, given in 1978, four years after arriving in the United States as an exile from Russia. The . . . . Continue Reading »
It’s not because of its sonority, its emotion, its excellence, or its beauty. No, forget all that; none of those messy, unscientific explanations get to the bottom of why we like music. The real truth has at last been revealed in its fulness: Whether it’s the Beatles or Beethoven, people . . . . Continue Reading »
In 2009, Planned Parenthood received $363 million in government funding and performed 329,008 abortions. Congressman Mike Pence recently introduced legislation to prohibit funding to any organization that performs abortion. As Pence says: The largest abortion provider in America should not also be . . . . Continue Reading »
I am a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture—but had nothing to do with the creation of the important documentary Eggsploitation (although I do have one line in it). The movie deals with the dangers of egg donation, and is now being shown at film festivals. . . . . Continue Reading »
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