It is well nigh impossible to offer an appreciation of Pope Benedict XVI’s theological accomplishments in a short column. But on the occasion of his resignation, perhaps a few of his noteworthy achievements can be highlighted. Although we are formally speaking of Benedict’s initiatives as pope, it is probably best to discuss the theological body of work he produced from 1981 to 2013, rather than simply his last eight years as bishop of Rome… . Continue Reading»
However history remembers Pope Benedict, one thing is assured: his reign will be remembered as one of the great teaching pontificates. Even those who question other aspects of it, praise it for that. “Where the Church has emerged especially strong under Benedict,” wrote the Los Angeles Times, “is in its intellectual discourse, elevated by a professorial pope who dedicated considerable time and energy to a series of highly regarded encyclicals and three books on the life of Jesus.” … Continue Reading»
Ronald Dworkin has died. In Taking Rights Seriously, his first major work, published in 1977, he mounted a powerful assault on the legal positivism of his mentor, H. L. A. Hart. Dworkin would go on to become one of the greatest legal philosophers of the age. The only people in his class were Hart himself and Joseph Raz, and many people think that the greatest of the three was Dworkin… . Continue Reading»
Lent is a time of renunciation and fasting, spiritual striving, self-examination, contrition, and penitence. It seems a grim and black season of self-accusation. But that’s all superficial. Lent is better understood as a season of Christian comedy. It’s not the glum waiting before the comedy of resurrection begins. Lent is the darkened path that winds toward the rising sun… . Continue Reading»
Should a government in a pluralist society such as the United States be neutral with respect to religious and secular ideas about the good life? Or should it promote a certain vision? Most Americans, recognizing that a government-sponsored philosophy would conflict with many citizens’ cherished beliefs (and possibly violate the establishment clause), would say that the government should be neutral… . Continue Reading»
A federal appellate court in Chicago issued a temporary injunction two weeks ago barring the enforcement of ObamaCare’s contraception mandate against Grote Industries, a Catholic-owned company in Indiana that makes vehicle safety systems. In its 2-1 ruling, the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals noted the company’s case was especially compelling because Grote is self-insured and there is no third-party insurance company involved. … Continue Reading»
Growing up, I knew only one kid from a “broken home,” my best friend in elementary school. There was a thing about it, a shame that went with it and a pity I felt for him. Everyone else I knew had parents firmly married. He was an aberration. Graduating high school in the mid-1960s, and still knowing no one else from a divorced home, I recall my astonishment four years later, running into a now-divorced classmate… . Continue Reading»
How do American colleges and universities teach American history? Conservatives may have a ready answer: poorly. But a ready answer can just as readily be deflected. At the National Association of Scholars (NAS) we decided to find out, as precisely as possible, how history is actually taught at two major universities… . Continue Reading»
When did modern Catholicism begin? The conventional wisdom says, “at Vatican II.” A sophisticated version of the conventional wisdom says, “with the mid-twentieth-century Catholic reform movements that shaped Vatican II.” In Evangelical Catholicism: Deep Reform in the 21st-Century Church, I suggest that even the sophisticated form of the conventional wisdom doesn’t open the lens widely enough… . Continue Reading»
With the announcement of his resignation, Pope Benedict signals the end of the heroic generation. No longer will the Catholic Church be run by a man who was a participant at the Second Vatican Council, the three years in the life of the Church that have defined so much of the last fifty… . Continue Reading»
