I have said that the silly season in Catholic liturgical practices is now passing. It is not definitively past. Witness this suggested “Prayer of the Faithful” for Thanksgiving Day published by Pueblo in New York and found on the Catholic World Report website. We are assured this is not . . . . Continue Reading »
“It’s nothing new.” That’s the judgment widely expressed in response to the instruction from Rome excluding from the seminary and priesthood men who engage in, or are deemed likely to engage in, homosexual acts. It is nothing new. The teaching is as old as the Church . . . . Continue Reading »
Thanksgiving Day. The little community of which I’m part doesn’t have a Thanksgiving dinner. We disperse to the homes of friends and families. I go to a dinner with New York priests, hosted by a bishop at an Italian gun club. It’s great fun and not as sinister as it sounds. . . . . Continue Reading »
I am back from Madrid where I gave the final address at the VII Congreso Católicos y Vida Pública¯the seventh congress on Catholics in public life. My theme was “The Catholic Case for the Secular State.” The lecture was apparently well-received by the thousands of . . . . Continue Reading »
“In Strong Terms, Rome Is to Ban Gays as Priests.” That’s the front page headline in today’s New York Times . The headline and the story is a mix of fact and mendacity of a low order. The long-awaited instruction from the Congregation for Catholic Education, leaked a few . . . . Continue Reading »
There’s a set of English town names that sound more like settings for P.G. Wodehouse comedies or Agatha Christie mysteries than real places¯Bishop’s Waltham, for instance, a little place in Hampshire where Ivy Smith was baptized this month. I mention this only because she was 101 . . . . Continue Reading »
Reading by Osmosis You know ¯ My sister osmoted The Mill on the Floss , a marvelous book, and gave us a gloss: concerning a man named John Stuart Mill with terrible teeth that made him quite ill. . . . . Continue Reading »
Liberté, égalité, fraternité is the motto of the French Republic, but the fraternité seems to have gone up in the smoke of burning cars over the last few weeks. And so the French government has appointed a commission to see whether another distinctive mark of . . . . Continue Reading »
As Allen Hertzke spelled out recently in FIRST THINGS (see "The Shame of Darfur," October), one of the great changes of recent years has been the determination of evangelical Protestants in this country to get serious about human rights, and about religious freedom in particular. Michael . . . . Continue Reading »
Monday I was down in Washington, having joined a working study group for an ambitious new project on “Religion and U.S. Foreign Policy.” This is a joint endeavor of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations. Under the leadership of Luis . . . . Continue Reading »
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