During the First World War, the British, including two Jewish battalions of the Royal Fusiliers, conquered the Ottoman-ruled Land of Israel (then known as Palestine). After the war, the League of Nations granted Britain a mandate for the establishment of a Jewish national home there. While the Jewish community grew under British rule, Britain also became less than enthusiastic about a Jewish national home… . Continue Reading»
A fortnight ago I made the case that the social democratic project in the West is under stress and may come unraveled. This does not mean I think it was a mistake. On the contrary, it was a brilliant achievement in its day. During the dark years of the Great Depression neither democracy nor free market capitalism seemed likely to survive. Fascism and Communism presented themselves as the only truly modern approaches to political and economic life, and their followers strutted, arrogantly confident that the future was theirs… . Continue Reading»
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God … And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” We miss the full force of John’s Advent announcement if we understand “flesh” as “body” or “human nature.” In the Bible, flesh names a particular quality of human life. It is Scripture’s global term for the physical and moral condition of postlapsarian existence… . Continue Reading»
Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebellius has issued regulations requiring private health plans to cover contraceptives (including some abortifacients). Against the USCCB’s charge that this requirement is wrong and that the exemptions from this requirement are too narrow to protect religious liberty, Doug Kmiec defends the administration”unsuccessfully… . Continue Reading»
Last year’s November publication of Light of the World, the book length interview with Pope Benedict XVI by Peter Seewald, set off a media frenzy over claims that the Catholic Church had changed its position on condoms. Critics of Church teaching quickly used the occasion to remark that the archaic institution just might be catching up to the rest of the world, while some ill-informed Catholics began to fear that the elderly Pope might be suffering an onset of dementia and was single-handedly reversing Church teaching on sexual ethics. The truth, however, is that the Roman pontiff was doing neither of those things. One year later, on the occasion of World AIDS Day, I believe it’s helpful to revisit just what the Pope had to say about condom usage and the HIV/AIDS crisis and how we can best respond… . Continue Reading»
Michael Kinsley’s recent Bloomberg View column, which appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer as “Bishops are not exactly oppressed” (Nov. 23), makes a number of basic mistakes concerning law as it relates to religious freedom that we, as lawyers and law professors, wish to correct. Kinsley begins by usefully calling attention to the recent warnings by Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York and Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia that there is a drive by some to marginalize religion. … Continue Reading»
I have always wanted to like the novels of Iris Murdoch more than I have. Right up my alley, I’ve thought, preoccupied as she was (and I am) with literature, religion, and philosophy. But when I’ve read them, I’ve been disappointed, though entertained. The characters are usually alive and well-drawn, the settings beautifully described, but the situations and the plots have seemed contrived, brain-spun as Tolstoy would say. … Continue Reading»
If memory serves, this past year saw electronic books top printed books in the sales figures at Amazon.com. Be that as it may, books”real books”still make wonderful Christmas gifts. Here are some recently published (and read) titles I can recommend with enthusiasm… . Continue Reading»
During the 1980s, two books”Evolution: a Theory in Crisis, by Michael Denton, and The Mystery of Life’s Origin: Reassessing Current Theories, by Charles Thaxton, Walter Bradley, and Roger Olsen”unwittingly gave rise to the Intelligent Design (ID) movement. Books by scientists”Michael Denton, Michael Behe, William Dembski, Stephen Meyer and others”pointed out various deficiencies in the theory of evolution: millions of gaps in the asserted “tree of evolution,” the impossibility of producing certain types of “irreducible complexity” by chance interactions, the failure of algorithms used by evolutionists to explain certain evolutionary developments, etc… . Continue Reading»
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has responded vigorously to the restrictive and unworkable “conscience regulations” being imposed on health care providers by the Obama Administration’s Health and Human Services (HHS) Department. The Catholic Archdiocese for Military Service has said “no” to allowing priests in the Armed Forces perform homosexual “weddings,” now that the historic prohibition on homosexuals in the military has been lifted. And most recently, eighteen Catholic colleges and universities banded together and, through the Alliance Defense Fund, submitted comments to HHS citing a violation of religious freedom regarding the interim final rules on preventative services. … Continue Reading»
