The cartoon below appeared, with an accompanying article, in Harper’s magazine. The article is entitled “The Priests and the Children.” The cartoon shows a group of children huddled behind a single adult protector along the banks of a river. The children are weeping. Some are down on their knees in supplication. Some are peeking out from behind their lone defender’s back. All of them look fearful. … Continue Reading »
I’ve never met Benedict XVI, but I feel as though I have. Or at least I think I have a pretty good sense of how his mind works: clear, to the point, and earthy. OK, maybe not D. H. Lawrence earthy, but for a German university professor very direct, concrete, and capable of a memorable turn of phrase. … Continue Reading »
Throughout history people have been awed and thrilled by retellings of their culture’s creation story. Aztecs would tell of the Lady of the Skirt of Snakes, Phoenicians about the Zophashamin, and Jews and Christians about the one true God”Jehovah. But there is one unfortunate group”the children of atheistic materialists”that has no creation myth to call its own. … . Continue Reading »
Asked to name the most populous American dioceses, alert Catholics would likely name Los Angeles, New York and Chicago. I rather doubt that most of us would rank Brooklyn (the country’s only completely urban diocese) as high on the league table as it in fact is, and I’m willing to wager that not 1 in 20 Catholics would put Rockville Centre and Orange (California) in the top 10. … . Continue Reading »
Last October, the Smithsonian Institute opened the “Hide/Seek” exhibit, which, as the Washington Post’s Blake Gopnik writes, “surveys how same-sex love has been portrayed in art, from Walt Whitman’s hints to open declarations in the era of AIDS and Robert Mapplethorpe’s bullwhips.” Gopnik praised the show hugely, calling it “courageous, as well as being full of wonderful art.” … . Continue Reading »
A recent slew of football deaths have shaken many who follow the game. Research is increasingly suggesting that there may well be definable links between the blunt trauma of football and the early deaths of players. … Continue Reading »
“Yeah, right” is the way my the more irenic of my Evangelical friends react to the Immaculate Conception, the feast day of which (a holy day of obligation) we celebrate on Wednesday. A few will go so far as to say something like “Whatever floats your boat,” while others react with something like horror or disgust. Very few, in my experience, has a very good idea of the dogma to which they’re reacting… . . Continue Reading »
Andreas Widmer doesn’t know what God has in store for the future, but he sees the marks of God’s providence all over his past. “God is constantly giving us a surprise party,” he muses, “and He’s saying, ‘Just wait and see what wonders I have in store for you next!’” … . Continue Reading »
In the August/September issue of First Things , Matthew Milliner gave a delightful account of his visit to the Eastern Orthodox Monastery of St Anthony in Arizona’s Sonora Desert. At least, I quite enjoyed it”though, truth be told, I would have enjoyed it considerably more had it not included a brief exchange Milliner had with the monastery’s abbot … Continue Reading »
Poets have always known that love is a fire. It burns, it melts, it consumes, it heats; it can smolder and burn low, only to burst out again with new energy. Lovers give themselves to the flames, risk and hazard all they have… . Continue Reading »
