In dioceses across America, bishops send out lists of collections that are to be taken up in individual parishes throughout the year. Some are local, but many are promoted by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. There are, for example, Peter’s Pence, Missionary Sunday, and the Retirement Fund for Religious. One of these, the lesser-known Campaign for Human Development, has been such a cause for concern that in 2008 the American bishops began to question how it works and even suggested phasing it out… . Continue Reading»
Minimalism is in, but beauty isn’t always simple. It can be as intricate as calligraphy or as complicated as love. Beauty can be slender, or it can be opulent, like 672-pages-enshrouded-in-an-ornate-hardcover-binding opulent. This is what Craig Thompson has proved in his long-anticipated graphic novel, Habibi. In this work, Thompson has created something truly spectacular by infusing more instead of less into every pen-stroke, metaphor, and plot twist. … Continue Reading»
As an angry mob has amassed in New York’s financial district, and countless other cities, promising to “Occupy Wall Street [Or Your Location Here],” I have felt a discomfort that grows more insistent by the day. Not because I am one of the nation’s wealthiest one percent (I am quite far from it indeed), nor because I would oppose higher taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations (I would likely favor them, depending on the particular proposal). No, my discomfort stems from a source much more primal than any theoretical policy analysis: I am uncomfortable with the angry mob because I am a Jew… . Continue Reading»
An Orthodox friend has a T-shirt that says, “Wow, suppose it’s all true!” The “all” of course is the Christian Gospel and its ultimate promise of resurrection and everlasting communion with the Holy Trinity. If it is all true, if Jesus is risen, and if following him leads to that everlasting communion, then the impact on our lives will be vast. The impact will even touch sex. That proposition is increasingly incomprehensible to souls nurtured by the toxic soup of post-modern sentimentalism. … Continue Reading»
I no longer believe the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) is in any way primarily an advocacy organization for sexual abuse victims. Instead, I think it is more a noisy little group that hates the Roman Catholic Church and has discovered a way of making a living off the victimization others have suffered. My poor opinion of SNAP was formed some time ago, but the organization returned to my attention as I’ve followed the most recent scandal unfolding in the Kansas City“St. Joseph diocese… . Continue Reading»
On March 25 of this year, Sviatoslav Shevchuk was elected head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC). Are those crickets I hear? The sound of one hand clapping, perhaps? Put another way: Why does this matter? To begin, the election entrusts to his care the souls of some four and a quarter million Christians, all heirs to a lineage of tragedy that spans centuries and includes the Soviet-perpetrated monstrosity of the Holodomor … Continue Reading»
A few weeks ago, the promoters and supporters of World Contraceptive Use Day received the latest news of their continued failure. Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals released results of a survey that questioned more than 6,000 young people from 26 countries on their attitudes toward sex and contraception. The report revealed, among other findings, that over the past three years the number of young people having sex without a condom with a new partner increased by 111 percent in France, 39 percent in the U.S., and 19 percent in Britain… . Continue Reading»
Two volumes recently published by Encounter Books address key issues in the New Evangelization. The first, Marcello Pera’s Why We Should Call Ourselves Christians, is another effort by a distinguished public intellectual to call our civilization back to its foundational senses. Pera, a philosopher of science, is also an Italian legislator who served for several years as president of the Italian Senate… . Continue Reading»
The only good thing about watching your baseball team get eliminated in the post-season is that, after launching a frustrated shoe at the television, one is excused from having to endure repeated viewings of the detestable little playlets written by Madison Avenue cynics who”perhaps due to the bad economy”have decided to eschew psychotherapy in favor of working out their relationship issues and general neurosis on the rest of us… . Continue Reading»
Walking through Europe, one finds the relics of Christianity. Not relics in the Christian sense of the term”the cherished remains of the beloved dead, the things that make real our connection to the believers who have gone before”but in the literal sense of the Latin: relicta, things that have been left behind, abandoned, or forsaken. The monastery has become a museum filled with placards that don’t quite know what to make of the former occupants… . Continue Reading»
