Auschwitz is always a harsh lesson¯a slap, a rebuke, an indictment. This is a proof of what humans can do. This is a monument to what humans can be. There is no one who is not guilty, there is no one who is not shamed, there is no one who is not shown a mirror by that vile camp the Nazis built . . . . Continue Reading »
The New Yorker has noticed that Oriana Fallaci is not exactly what you might call a run-of-the-mill commentator on recent events. "At one point in The Rage and the Pride ," Margaret Talbot notes, Fallaci "complains about Somali Muslims leaving ‘yellow streaks of urine that . . . . Continue Reading »
The Rev. George Coyne, S.J., director of the Vatican Observatory, has a penchant for theologically risqué statements. In a recent talk he asked, about life’s origins, "Do we need God to explain this? Very succinctly, my answer is no." Well, very succinctly, that is absurd. Of . . . . Continue Reading »
Here’s a happy spin. The headline in Catholic New York , “The Nation’s Largest Catholic Newspaper,” reads: “Poll Says Catholics Not Swayed by ‘Da Vinci Code.’” That’s good news, if you don’t read the story. The national survey was done by . . . . Continue Reading »
I was honored to be asked to speak at the commencement of the Dominican House of Studies, also known as the Pontificial Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, in Washington, D.C. As readers of First Things know, I have a thing about the Dominicans and their charism. Here is what I said: I . . . . Continue Reading »
Out in Orange County , they’re preaching fire and brimstone. "Rebellion, grave disobedience, and mortal sin," the pastor of St. Mary’s by the Sea in Huntington Beach, California, thundered to his congregation in the church bulletin. Now, ever since Jonathan Edwards preached . . . . Continue Reading »
As with the pun, appreciation of the limerick is a cultivated taste. I’m still working on it, very intermittently. Ernest W. Lefever has put together a little collection of 230 of them in Liberating the Limerick (Hamilton Books). There is, for instance, this: . . . . Continue Reading »
Today is Ascension Day, a holy day of obligation. In some dioceses, the observance is transferred to next Sunday. The idea, as it is helpfully explained, is that going to Mass on a weekday may be excessively burdensome or give non-Catholic neighbors the impression that Catholics are different. At . . . . Continue Reading »
So what’s your church? I don’t know what easy answer Mark Kinzer has in response to that question. He is president of the Messianic Jewish Theological institute, and an ordained rabbi who teaches Jewish studies at Fuller Theological Seminary. Jews who have come to faith in Yeshua as the . . . . Continue Reading »
An amazing story in the Guardian today: Patients who were unconscious for years, diagnosed as being in “persistent vegetative states” came awake when they were given a new experimental medication. As Wesley J. Smith emails to note, “They interacted with their environment. And . . . . Continue Reading »
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