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Rights You Can’t Give Away

Most Americans know the Declaration of Independence states that God endows people with certain “unalienable” rights. When I ask my students what it means for a right to be inalienable, they respond that it means that government cannot take those rights away. I follow up that modal answer by asking whether that means that government can then take away rights that are alienable. At that point we usually need to pause to consider a bit more rigorously what it means for a right to be inalienable… . Continue Reading »

Christianity is Not for Quitters

At his famous Harvard Commencement address in 1978, Alexander Solzhenitsyn remarked, “A decline in courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West.” Thirty-five years later, one could add: “and an increase in pessimism and despair.” Defeatism and disillusionment have become fashionable in certain circles, considered high acts of sophistication. Books announcing the ruination and end of America flood the marketplace and are praised for their black humor. Hopelessness has become chic… . Continue Reading »

One Lord, One Table

The clash between Peter and Paul at Antioch is one of those back-water biblical incidents that changed the world. It’s ancient history, but it’s as relevant today as it was in the first century, if not more so. Paul recounts the incident in the second chapter of his letter to the Galatians, his main epistle against the “Judaizers.” According to some Jewish converts in the early church, Gentiles could not become full disciples of Jesus without first becoming Jews. They had to be circumcised, observe Jewish purity laws and dietary restrictions, and follow Jewish rules about table fellowship if they were going to be full members of the Christian community… . Continue Reading »

Shamscendence

I’m told that when a man is drowning, just before he succumbs, he sometimes thrashes violently side to side, believing himself to be swimming upward, all the while sinking lower and lower to his death. Something similar seems to be happening with the Episcopal Church today. Its fundamental purpose is to transcend the limits of life on earth by orienting souls upward toward God, but instead of transcendence it deals in “shamscendence,” thrashing sideways from one earthly fad to another as it sinks into decline. Its end must be near… . Continue Reading »

Christus Totus: Why Catholics Care about Christians

The University of Mary defines its mission and identity as “Christian, Catholic, and Benedictine.” Its Christian Leadership Center, which I direct, is intended to foster relationships among a wide variety of Christians, from Catholics to Pentecostals, from Lutherans to Baptists. But why? Why would a Roman Catholic University named after the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, conceived immaculate, ever sinless, assumed body and soul into heaven, deliberately describe its identity as “Christian” first, then “Catholic, and Benedictine”? … Continue Reading »

A Crisis of Faith in Science?

If Laura Stepp at CNN is to be believed, conservatives who oppose the use of contraceptives for religious reasons have lost their faith in science and are abdicating the use of their intellect in order to maintain an untenable position. She cites a study which analyzes survey data revealing that, since the mid-1970s, a falling percentage of college-educated conservatives claim to “trust science,” compared to relatively stable numbers among liberals, and argues that those who oppose contraception, question the Neo-Darwinist narrative of evolution, or disagree with certain political measures to address global climate change, are opposed to science in general… . Continue Reading »

The Sisters: Two Views

After the April announcement that the Vatican was taking the Leadership Conference of Women Religious into a form of ecclesiastical receivership, appointing Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain to oversee the LCWR until its statutes and program are reformed, Tom Fox, a major figure at the National Catholic Reporter for decades, had this to say … Continue Reading »

Benedict XVI and the Ultimate Betrayal

He looked tired. The glow which once radiated from his visage has been clouded, even amid the natural joy of Pentecost Sunday. And we also heard it in his voice, as he proclaimed in his homily, with a slight tremble, the most profound and apropos aspect of this great Feast … Continue Reading »

Sigrid Undset’s Essays for our Time

Nearly a century has passed since Sigrid Undset wrote the biographical essays about holy men and women, and the letters, which eventually would be collected and published under the heading, Stages on the Road. It is a title evocative of the life of faith, wholly explored and lived-out”unpacked depot by depot, as it were”from the spiritual nursery, to precarious venturing forth, to stepping back in wonder or doubt, to the nearly inevitable and deepening darkness that, for all its pain, accesses an interior cave of Oneness, solitary yet completed in the companionship of the Christ… . Continue Reading »

That They May Be One

Gathered for their ad limina, Eastern Catholic bishops from the U.S. were addressed last week by Prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, Leonardo Cardinal Sandri. His injunction”made not about abortion, the HHS mandate, war, wealth redistribution, or gay marriage”could have a critical influence on the Christian response to all of the above… . Continue Reading »

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