All of us have a longing to be fully known: by ourselves, by others, and by God. Fundamental to Christian thought is this: We can only know ourselves fully when we know ourselves as we are known by God. As Gaudium et Spes teaches, “In reality it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of man truly becomes clear.” … Continue Reading »
To the Wonder follows the relationship of Frenchwoman Marina (Olga Kurylenko) and American Neil (Ben Affleck), who fall in love in Paris and then return to Neil’s American home along with Marina’s young daughter. Their relationship stalls, and another woman, Jane (Rachel McAdams), enters Neil’s life… . Continue Reading »
A few weeks ago, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came out in favor of same-sex marriage. Having first allowed her husband to send up a trial balloon, Mrs. Clinton revealed that she had, like President Barack Obama, finally “evolved” in her thinking… . Continue Reading »
Republicans are in a world of hurt. Many analysts believe that the old coalition of social and fiscal conservatism doesn’t sell, at least not well enough to win national elections. The culprit, many think, is “certain social issues,” as a recent GOP national report delicately put it… . Continue Reading »
Studies compete for the most accurate representation of the risk to a marriage posed by living together before the wedding, but most estimations predict somewhere around a 33 percent increased risk of divorce. Regardless of magnitude, however, they all claim the same thing: that premarital cohabitation is highly correlated with unsuccessful marriages… . Continue Reading »
The famous first line of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land was almost certainly not written in April but in January. In a letter on January 23, 1921, Eliot refers to the nascent poem as “the first writing of any kind I have done for six months.” Two weeks later, he showed the completed first section “in 4 parts” to Wyndham Lewis. … Continue Reading »
On April 1, the Health Care Committee of the Washington State Senate held a two-hour hearing on what its proponents euphemistically call the “Reproductive Parity Act,” and its opponents describe as the “abortion insurance mandate.” If passed, EHB 1044 would require that if any health insurance plan provided coverage for maternity care, it “must also provide a covered person with substantially equivalent coverage to permit the voluntary termination of a pregnancy.” … Continue Reading »
When twenty children and six adults were gunned down at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, in December, it rightfully made huge news. Since the killings, the media have worked energetically to keep the atrocity front and center in the public consciousness”as a story still important in its own right, to be sure, but also as a way to lend support for gun control laws … Continue Reading »
Alyssa Rosenberg argues on Slate that Romeo and Juliet “is full of terrible, deeply childish ideas about love.” She’s quite right … because that’s the point of the play. Reading the text, instead of assuming it represents the genre “perfect love that is tragically thwarted,” makes it clear that other characters and arguably Shakespeare himself see Romeo and Juliet’s love as gravely flawed… . Continue Reading »
While reasonable people can and do disagree about immigration, the stance of the congressional GOP on guest workers indicates that many Republican leaders have chosen to learn the wrong lessons from the most recent election. Let’s start with some facts about the contemporary United States… . Continue Reading »
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