An example: In the twenty-six years he’s been a priest, our pastor Father Rich Jones said at Mass this morning, he’s done about 2400 funerals. He’s kept the prayer cards from each one in a drawer in his room and every day he pulls out five cards at random and prays for those people. Read more
Chad Pecknold, a theologian at Catholic University of America and among other things with me a member of of the board of Ethika Politika, will be speaking tomorrow (Monday) night at Franciscan University on “Augustine on the Powers.” Information found here. I’ll be there and hope to meet any readers who happen to be. Read more
For what it’s worth, in the merging of parishes the Archdiocese of New York just announced, more of the parishes being merged into others had unusual names than had those into which they’re being merged. In the former group are St. Roch (two of them), Our Lady of the Scapular, Holy Agony, St. Pius V, St. John Vianney, Nativity of the Blessed Lady, St. Ursula, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, St. Sylvia, and St. Thomas Aquinas. In the latter are Our... Read more
Virgin Gallactic’s website reports that SpaceshipTwo “suffered a serious anomaly resulting in the loss of the vehicle.” Meaning it blew up & crashed. This isn’t as bad a euphemism as “enhanced interrogation,” since that was intended to hide an action and this one is intended to soften the effect of announcing, but still, it’s not straight speaking. Read more
In that case, explains Notre Dame professor John Cavadini, you would benefit from having in your parish someone who identifies himself as gay and lives and advocates the Church’s teaching about sexuality and marriage. Writing the Cardinal Newman Society, he asks what parents could do with a child who says he is gay, won’t accept your explanation that he’s really “struggling with same-sex attraction,” and is going to leave the Church because it’s “anti-gay.” What if there were someone in the parish,... Read more
From the same interview quoted in the previous item, defense analyst and Pulitzer Prize finalist Tom Ricks on writing. He describes as like having children with each one offering different joys and sorrows, and says that an editor of his once told him that “Oh, every good book has at one nervous breakdown in it.” Then: 11. What has been your greatest challenge as a journalist? There are several different ways to answer that — professionally, intellectually and morally. Professionally, the... Read more
Defense analyst and Pulitzer Prize finalist Tom Ricks on developing leadership: 13. Let’s talk about talent management. What do we need to do to develop leaders of the caliber of Marshall, Eisenhower, and Bradley? What bothers me off here is we all know the answer. Look at the interwar period — lots of study, time for reflection, intellectual rigor, and a requirement to be able to think and write clearly. One reason I like spending time in the Army archives is the writing skill... Read more
When I was an Episcopalian and serving on the board of the Episcopal Church’s pro-life lobby NOEL, as I write in “The Whole House,” published in the October New Oxford Review, Episcopal leaders are almost universally pro-choice, and only a handful of conservatives were willing to be publicly pro-life. Pastors of large conservative parishes would refuse to allow a chapter of NOEL because it might “divide the parish” and “distract us from mission.” Abortion was a problem to be handled or managed, not... Read more
In contrast to the sour traditionalists I described yesterday in Traditionalists on Francis, Philip Lawler offers an example of sane concerns about Pope Francis’ views and desires, in Could respect for the papacy mean resisting the Pope? Pope Francis might wish to change the Church’s teaching, but he realizes that he cannot do so unilaterally. He needs the full support of his brother bishops, to assure him that he is not merely promoting his own personal preferences. If he is... Read more
Alan Cornett tells a story about the conservative patriarch Russell Kirk at Halloween: The Halloween I spent at Piety Hill, Russell Kirk’s home, was one of my favorite times there. The house looked haunted year ‘round, but decorations ramped it up for All Hallow’s Eve. I recall Dr. Kirk wanting to leave the fake spider webs at the front door after the day was over. His wife Annette ignored him. One young, wide-eyed trick-or-treater entered the darkened foyer, a space... Read more
David Mills
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