In a 2010 interview with Catholic World Report, Cardinal Joseph Zen, S.D.B., the emeritus bishop of Hong Kong, wondered aloud about the Catholic Church’s reticence to acknowledge those who had been martyred by Chinese communists during the Maoists’ rise to power, and thereafter. “Why should we not publicize … those martyrs?” Cardinal Zen asked. The truth demands it. Self-respect requires it… . Continue Reading »
Considering the subtitle of Michael Sean Winters’ attack upon the newly selected Archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles Chaput, to wit, “The problem with Culture Warrior Bishops,” one is tempted to remark that the “trouble” is that there are far too few of them. But that would be to accept Winters’ misleading and unhelpful characterization of the issue, and that would be a mistake. It is difficult to imagine a time when Catholic teaching was as challenged as it is now… . Continue Reading »
“Law is framed as a rule or measure of human acts,” says Thomas Aquinas, and “different things are measured by different measures.” Human “measures” or laws direct men to the common good; the divine law undergirds it, indicating what it means to be and to be good. Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure is about what happens when the human measure usurps the role of the divine measure, when the state tries to be church for its people… . . Continue Reading »
The muses are gaily capricious in the favors they bestow upon us, but humorlessly imperious in the demands they make of us. One never knows when inspiration may strike; one knows only that, when it comes, it must not be resisted. In my case, the occasion was an idle afternoon this past week, as I was irascibly considering the reaction of a few conservative Catholic critics to Terrence Malick’s strange, beautiful, perhaps slightly mad, and deeply Christian film The Tree of Life… . Continue Reading »
As recent events in New York show, the marriage debate in America takes place amid serious political and legal fault lines. But efforts to defend and strengthen this bedrock institution ultimately depend on how marriage is understood, articulated, and practiced in civil society… Continue Reading »
I have been called to numerous death beds, and I would like to say I have learned many things about the dignity of Christian death, but I cannot say so. Death is an indignity of the first order; that’s all I know.My feelings are complicated by an acute sense of inadequacy for the occasion. Something noble and fearless should arise to match the solemnity of the moment, but rarely does… . Continue Reading »
In an interview on the science in science fiction, novelist William Gibson noted, “[T]he future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed yet.” What Gibson meant was that the innovations in science fiction could already be found”at least in embryonic form”in our current ideas or technology. Much the same could be said about future social and legal norms concerning the institution of marriage”they are already here, they’re just not evenly distributed yet… . Continue Reading »
Twenty years ago, the American Catholic thinker Michael Novak put his head together with his friend Rocco Buttiglione, a distinguished Italian thinker, to see what might be done about educating a new cadre of young Catholic leaders in the social doctrine of the Church. John Paul II’s recently released social encyclical, Centesimus Annus, seemed an ideal intellectual anchor for such an enterprise, given its rich development of the social doctrine and its bracing challenge to build free and virtuous societies in the 21st century… . Continue Reading »
I would like to offer three reflections that focus on the “Catholic” identity of Catholic Charities and, by extension, the identity of all Catholic social work. First: What we do becomes who we are. A man who does good usually becomes good”or at least better than he was. A man who struggles with his fear and overcomes it and shows courage gradually becomes brave. And a man who steals from his friends or cheats his company, even in little things, eventually becomes a thief… . Continue Reading »
Recently a reader at my blog asked me what it would take for me to call “heresy” on someone else. Apparently, to refuse to lightly j’accuse is to be continually vomited out of Jesus’ mouth in a lukewarm stream, but I may find redemption if only I will carp endlessly about how the world is ending and the church is dying, and lay the fault for it at the feet of the bishops and possibly of me, myself… . Continue Reading »
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