Vacation brought us this year to Washington, D.C. We went monument hunting in the dark. One can visit a lot of national monuments after hours: no crowds, no tourist trams, no hawkers, plus I could try my hand at night photography (hope you don’t mind if I show a couple results, dedicated to Lincoln and King). Take care where you park your automobile, however… . Continue Reading »
Let me begin by paying Father Andrew Greeley, who died this past May 29, a compliment he’d never have paid me, or indeed anyone of my “location” in the Church: Catholicism was duller after Greeley was felled by an accident in 2008, and the Church feels emptier since his death… . Continue Reading »
For better or worse, clergy have always been involved in U.S. politics. A Secret Life: The Lies and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland by Charles Lachman tells how pastors, rather fecklessly, virtually decided a presidential election… . Continue Reading »
It was easy to miss but on June 30 the New York Post carried brief editorial remarks by Michael Goodwin that read: “Count me among those cheering the Supreme Court decisions on gay marriage. At least I was cheering until I read the part of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s opinion where he claims the law he struck down was motivated by hate … Continue Reading »
I was not at all interested in reading Judy Nicastro’s New York Times op-ed. Not at first, anyway. A piece in any newspaper titled “My Abortion, at 23 Weeks” stands a pretty good chance of ruining my day. But in the Times? Breezy titles like this are usually confined to the posh pages of the Travel section (“My Kashmir Adventure, at 23 Weeks”). Make no mistake: The Times knows what it’s doing… . Continue Reading »
One often hears about how the Muslim world needs to “undergo the Enlightenment” and “engage modernity,” learning the virtues of supposedly modern tolerance. It’s an understandable but naïve sentiment. Democracy and the modern nation state are hell on minorities… . Continue Reading »
Angela Merkel, next to the inimitable Margaret Thatcher, is the most consequential elected female leader in European history. Born in Hamburg in 1954, Merkel grew up in East Germany where her father was a Lutheran pastor. Before turning to politics, Merkel was a physicist with a Ph.D. from the University of Leipzig… . Continue Reading »
There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. (Revelation 21:4) Proselytizers for “transhumanism” claim that through the wonders of technology, you or your children will live forever. Not only that, but within decades you will be able to transform your body and consciousness into an infinite variety of designs and purpose … Continue Reading »
What happens in Curaçao doesn’t stay in Curaçao, at least if one is Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. Last month, Katharine Jefferts Schori preached a routine Sunday sermon on the idyllic Dutch island off the coast of Venezuela that was so roundly criticized that it made it all the way into the pages of the New York Times, as the subject of a Beliefs column by reporter Mark Oppenheimer… . Continue Reading »
You know that someone has bad news to relate when he begins by saying, “well, it could have been worse.” That is what the defenders of conjugal marriage are saying after the brace of Supreme Court rulings issued yesterday on challenges to that truth that is as old as the human race, that marriage is between a man and a woman. The net effect of the rulings is further damage to marriage, and to the power of the law to uphold the truth about it… . Continue Reading »
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