2016-04-13T18:30:26-07:00

Last updated on: April 13, 2016 at 6:30 pm   By

It is the right time to unveil this bombshell on the day when one of the 20th century’s most influential thinkers, Jacques Lacan, was born 115 years ago. He relaunched psychoanalysis in the 1950’s with his seminars on Freud. His thinking is background behind all the leading postmodernist writers such as Jacques Derrida and Julia Kristeva (see the links for my posts about them). You might remember Jacques Lacan’s Ecrits from your graduate studies. They were pretty much mandatory and, without... Read more

2016-04-13T09:46:39-07:00

Last updated on: April 13, 2016 at 9:46 am   By

I’m a little sheepish about publishing book lists, even though my readers frequently tell me the lists are one of the things they like best about my blog. Granted, my readers might prefer reading book blurbs to my own grating writing–can’t blame them. I’ve done a couple of TOP10 lists upon request. This is going to be the case this week. Henry Venema, who has written extensively about St. Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics in books such as Identifying Selfhood: Imagination, Narrative,... Read more

2016-04-12T07:44:06-07:00

Last updated on: April 12, 2016 at 7:44 am   By

Religion in so far as it is a source of consolation is a hindrance to true faith; and in this sense atheism is a purification. I have to be an atheist with that part of myself which is not made for God. Among those in whom the supernatural part of themselves has not been awakened, the atheists are right and the believers wrong. –Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace Ros Barber’s provocative recently released novel Devotion is set sometime in the... Read more

2016-04-11T00:20:30-07:00

Last updated on: April 11, 2016 at 12:20 am   By

The truncated statement, “Who am I to judge?,” caused a lot of consternation among certain kinds of Catholics. Some of them saw it as the prelude to a Church blessing of same-sex marriage. Others thought it was the prelude to the utter decline of Church into zeitgeist affirming irrelevance. Few read the statement in context. Let’s dive into it despite the fact that, as T.S. Eliot put it in The Four Quartets, “human kind / Cannot bear very much reality.” Amoris... Read more

2016-04-06T11:03:13-07:00

Last updated on: April 6, 2016 at 11:03 am   By

“If you want to understand the Jewish conception of sacrifice, go to a Roman Catholic Mass.” –Rabbi Daniel Lehman lecturing, as reported by Holly Taylor Coolman I feel politically homeless whenever I listen to coverage of the presidential race. There are so many different flavors of Protestant, even among the Catholic former candidates, that I can’t help but root for the Jew. I’m reminded just how Protestant and bland this country is watching a classic clip of Siskel and Ebert commiserating... Read more

2016-04-06T11:02:30-07:00

Last updated on: April 6, 2016 at 11:02 am   By

  Comprised of Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa and Kristen Walker Hatten, New Wave Feminists takes a thick-veined, iconoclastic, jocular approach to pro-life feminism. Together they write, give public talks, create videos, and take to social media to offer support for women and fight the belief that women must settle for the redistributed oppression of abortion. For the unfamiliar, I recommend watching their videos and then coming back to see how the meat is made. Let’s start with the basics. Who... Read more

2016-04-03T22:44:56-07:00

Last updated on: April 3, 2016 at 10:44 pm   By

Too much thinking about the family’s key role in the New Evangelization makes family life look like a saccharine utopia of spiritual progress without wounds. It’s hard to believe how much water has flowed under the bridge since Dominik came into the world. He is now seven years old. I’ve been doing my best to get him to actively participate in Mass and prayer. It’s not as easy for him as it was for me. Even though I grew up... Read more

2016-03-01T10:39:22-07:00

Last updated on: March 1, 2016 at 10:39 am   By

This story now has a happy ending. It seems it took about a month for president Newman of Mount Saint Mary’s to finally get fired from his position. As first reported by the A Miner Detail, the school issued an anodyne statement that papered over the disaster that was Newman’s tenure: “The board is grateful to President Newman for his many accomplishments over the past year, including strengthening the University’s finances, developing a comprehensive strategic plan for our future, and... Read more

2016-02-19T12:45:04-07:00

Last updated on: February 19, 2016 at 12:45 pm   By

The Catholic blogosphere has seen its own share of debate about whether Catholics can in good faith vote for Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders. The suggestion of his potential viability understandably caused some outrage for not only those who reject abortion, but also those who oppose the expansion of government. The former remains an extremely troubling issue for Catholics who might want to vote for the Vermont senator, however the latter is only a superficial impediment. Mindy Selmys recently wrote several... Read more

2016-02-19T15:48:59-07:00

Last updated on: February 19, 2016 at 3:48 pm   By

The threat of ISIS to Western Civilization is overblown. The Syrian conflict and its consequences are a cover for intra-Western conflicts and crises, rather than anything apocalyptically new deserving the sort of attention it is getting in the media. The main protagonists are clearly not a ragtag group of Jihadist nutters versus the West, but the United States and Russia. If the Jihadist nutters were the real object of the conflict, then the Americans would have blown them to smithereens... Read more

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