Caroline Knapp on Achieving Adulthood

...In a word, alcohol is what protected me from growing up. That seems like such an obvious insight, so simple it borders on the banal, but until that moment I’d never really grasped the idea that growth was something you could choose, that adulthood might be less a chronological state than an . . . . Continue Reading »

American Christians Don’t Listen

Jesus : “Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh” (Matthew 25:13). Pew : “Roughly half (48%) of Christians in the U.S. say they believe that Christ will definitely (27%) or probably (20%) return to earth in the next 40 years.” . . . . Continue Reading »

What Ted Olson Doesn’t Get About Marriage

During his oral argument before the Supreme Court, Ted Olson observed that marriage is a “fundamental right.” This is a confused statement. It’s true that marriage is very important, fundamental, in fact. It’s part of the DNA of society, and for most people the path in life . . . . Continue Reading »

Anthony Kennedy: Catholic Jurist?

At the Huffington Post , U-Texas grad student William Blake writes about a study he conducted on the  impact of the justices’ religious views  on Supreme Court decisions. (The study, published in the  Political Research Quarterly , is  here .) Although they are not as . . . . Continue Reading »

Music for Holy Week: In Monte Oliveti

Maundy Thursday, like Palm Sunday, begins in joy and ends in sorrow. The music of Maundy Thursday usually recounts the events of the Last Supper, the foot-washing, the discourses found in the Gospel of John, the betrayal, and Jesus’ arrest. Orlando di Lasso’s “In Monte . . . . Continue Reading »

A Good Time to Be Catholic

Sandro Magister writes : It is a widespread opinion, confirmed by numerous testimonies, that the intention of electing pope Jorge Mario Bergoglio grew substantially among the cardinals on the morning of Saturday, March 9, when the then-archbishop of Buenos Aires spoke at the second to last of the . . . . Continue Reading »

St. Matthew’s Passion

The furtherance and further enrichment of the medieval Christian heritage of music and art remains of the greatest legacies of the Lutheran wing of the Protestant Reformation. As Luther stated in the preface to the 1524  Wittenberg Hymnal , he was “not of the opinion that the gospel . . . . Continue Reading »