New art works animated by sincere piety are rare in the United States. Still rarer are voices that do not see Islam as a minority protected from oppression or a dangerous threat to American liberty, but instead as a moral-theological system whose insights are relevant to contemporary domestic life. It’s unsurprising, then, that despite the critical adulation received by Ashgar Farhadi’s new film, A Separation, its reviewers seem to have missed that the film is work of sincere religious conviction… . Continue Reading»
On February 6, Queen Elizabeth II marked her diamond jubilee, an achievement that Great Britain will celebrate throughout 2012. I am not a monarchist, but I’ll happily join in saluting the Queen, who embodies several qualities that are in short supply among 21st-century public figures. In one of a slew of diamond jubilee books, author Robert Hardman reports that Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, is awed by the Queen’s “gravitas.” … Continue Reading»
One of my brothers goes to mass every day of the week, but he does not attend on Sunday. “I love the mass,” he says, “and I can’t stand missing it for a day. But I just can’t take those Sundays. I can’t.” That is ultimately between God, my brother and his pastor, but I sympathize, a little. He is a gregarious sort while I am an introvert, but we share a dislike for busy, noisy, overstimulated worship… . Continue Reading»
On February 25, the Associated Press ran a story with the headline “Santorum Benefits from Mistaken Religious Identity.” What does that mean? To anyone passably literate in contemporary American politics, it suggests that conservative Evangelical voters perceive Rick Santorum to be one of them. I was expecting to read about the results of another poll. I was wrong. There is no poll… . Continue Reading»
In the February 22nd Republican debate in Arizona, John King of CNN raised a question about birth control: “Since birth control is the latest hot topic, which candidate believes in birth control, and if not, why?” Mitt Romney recognized this as a return to the question that moderator George Stephanopoulos had asked him about contraception in the previous January 7th debate. The audience booed and showed dissatisfaction that this question was brought up again … Continue Reading»
Does freedom of conscience lead to a naked public square? When religious people try to protect their own rights of conscience, does this undermine their ability to advance their convictions publicly? In responding to the recent HHS mandate for religious employers to provide contraception and abortifacients, religious groups and individuals have argued that their rights of conscience trump any potential desire of their employees for these medications. Their private religious convictions about contraception and abortion prevent them from taking these actions, and under the First Amendment they cannot be coerced to violate those convictions… . Continue Reading»
He has reached a point where the toxins of renal failure have begun to occupy his days and his nights. A by-product are deep episodes of hallucination. He sees ants on the floor, stuffed animals coming to life. Most likely, he speculates, these are the animals my daughter once kept in what was her room before we moved him here to live with us. These animations run through the heating register or stand around staring at him goggle-eyed. From the dining room window, he expressed admiration for the marina in our back yard (I wish)… . Continue Reading»
In a February 14 note to his people, Cardinal Francis George, O.M.I., the archbishop of Chicago, commented on the question of “who speaks for the Catholic Church,” which had become a subject of public controversy thanks to the Obama administration’s “contraceptive mandate””which is, of course, an abortifacient and sterilization mandate as well. The cardinal noted the administration’s crude attempt to play divide-and-conquer with the Catholic Church in the United States, a ploy to which some nominally Catholic groups quickly acquiesced… . Continue Reading»
I am not political. At least I try not to be. I do not spend time, nor do I enjoy, discussing national politics. Some do. Some pastors get so bogged down in such things that they never really get on to the business of caring for souls. Blogging about this colleague or that colleague, this president or that president, is not, in my estimation, pastoral care. … Continue Reading»
Can we sustain a vibrant, free, pluralistic society without the liberal dogmas of neutrality and diversity? Is there a vision of justice and international cooperation that does not lead us toward a thin and shallow cosmopolitanism? Are we able to defend the dignity of the individual without liberalism’s commitment to the isolated, autonomous, and atomized self? … Continue Reading»
