Since November, the 2012 election campaigns have become overcrowded with ideas and narratives, some silly, some frankly false and some fractured, leaking lofty nuance like helium. Distractions pay huge dividends, right now. The silly ideas are the ones accompanied by odd hysterics from what Jimmy Breslin used to call “the official women.” … Continue Reading »
At the end of the Second World War, when the Nuremberg prosecutors were gathering evidence for the upcoming trials, one of the many people they turned to for assistance was Pope Pius XII. They were not disappointed. The Holy See sent on massive documentation, recounting Nazi criminality, and the material given proved to be of great value… . Continue Reading »
‘Reproductive health’ is the subject of numerous international conferences, United Nations meetings, agency reports, and NGO papers, yet the meaning of the term can vary widely”and very consequentially. Clarity about reproductive health is increasingly necessary as United Nations Member States seek to honor the Millennium Development Goals, one component of which is achieving universal access to reproductive health. This requires clarity about exactly what reproductive health is… . Continue Reading »
Paula Deen, the Food Network’s chubby “Queen of Butter” chef, took a grim drubbing for failing to disclose her Type 2 diabetic diagnosis made in 2008. It came to light three years later only after she made a paid endorsement of a Novo Nordisk diabetic medication and launched a web site, Diabetes in a New Light, linked from the Novo Nordisk home site… . Continue Reading »
The Obama administration’s recently-announced HHS regulations, which would require Catholic institutions to subsidize health insurance coverage that provides sterilization, abortifacient drugs, and contraceptives, should be located within the context of the administration’s three-year long effort to define religious freedom down. As the administration has demonstrated in its international human rights policy, it regards religious freedom as a kind of privacy right: the right to freedom of worship, which the administration seems to regard as analogous to any other optional, recreational activity… . Continue Reading »
Speaking at a campaign event on Monday, February 13 in Mesa, Arizona, Mitt Romney made a bold suggestion about the Constitution and Declaration of Independence: “They’re either inspired by God or written by brilliant people or perhaps a combination of both.” Inspired by God? It sounds like just another sop tossed to Tea-Party constitutionalism, but Romney was in fact invoking a longstanding Mormon doctrine which views the U.S. Constitution as not only great, but literally divine… . Continue Reading »
“Catholic Left” and “Catholic Right” are inadequate and irksome labels that too often sully all of us with the “ick” of politics even when our churchy disagreements are not rooted in politics at all, but simply upon a difference in vision and emphasis. So stipulating, and resigned to using more scare quotes than I would like, I am struck by what little assist President Obama gave to his friends on the “Catholic Left” with last Friday’s “accommodation” to their concerns with his HHS mandate… . Continue Reading »
Rick Santorum was impossible thirty years ago. If Rip van Winkle woke up today he would be dumbfounded. How could such an overtly religious and socially conservative politician have so much traction on the national scene? The answer comes from the Left. Since the Sixties our liberal elites have become increasingly anti-religious, increasingly opposed to traditional moral norms, and increasingly aggressive. As a result they have made our national politics much more extreme. … Continue Reading »
When abused, authority damages bodies. A husband punches his wife and breaks her nose. Abusive day care workers crush the bones, dislocate the limbs, and scar the souls of small children. Tyrants torture bodies into a quivering mess. Even when the results are not so extreme, abusive authority disables bodies. A husband who never lays an aggressive finger on his wife may still silence her with mockery and bullying threats. Children are blinded to reality by the manipulations of a sexual predator. Harsh teachers don’t open ears to instruction, but deafen… . Continue Reading »
Wayne Roosa, artist and art historian, will be displaying his 2010 series, In the Slipstream, at the First Things offices beginning February 16, 2012. (For more information on the opening night event, click here.) A professor of art history at Bethel University, St. Paul, Minnesota, and Chair of the New York Center for Art and Media Studies (NYCAMS), Roosa has been a research fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and a recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities research grant. His writings deal with contemporary art as well as the role of faith in art… . Continue Reading »
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