…even Chris Matthews is upset with the HHS/contraception ruling. On Tonight’s “Hardball,” the Catholic Matthews (whose aunt, he mentioned, is a Sister of St. Joseph) was almost beside himself trying to fathom what compelled the Obama Administration to insert itself into the way people practice their faith: I guess I grew up watching movies like Becket and A Man for All Seasons and seeing the church and state go to war with each other and being told stories from the... Read more
I don’t think we’ve seen the last of polls like this — or interpretations of them. Details: The Catholic bishops, backed by conservative evangelicals, say the Obama administration shouldn’t include contraceptioncoverage as part of free preventive care options in employers’ health insurance plans. Hence the showdown: As our editorial Monday says, religious liberties fight or, as Health and Human Services SecretaryKathleen Sebelius says, a free choice issue. And here’s where the Catholic women come in. According to the Public Religion Research Institute... Read more
Details: The first Roman Catholic presence in Arizona dates to 1539, when Franciscan priest Marcos de Niza explored the Southwest in his quest for the mythical seven cities of gold. Despite this early visit and the 1692 founding of a Jesuit mission near Tucson, the church’s long history has failed to produce a Catholic university or college. Even Vermont and North Dakota, which respectively have the second-smallest and third-smallest state populations, have Catholic colleges. But Arizona’s large Catholic population may... Read more
Details: Another Costa Concordia passenger has come forward and filed a lawsuit against Costa Crociere. A 30-year-old Italian woman identified only as Cristina M. claims she was four months pregnant when she went on the doomed Costa Concordia cruise, the Herald Sun reports. Though she managed to get off the sinking ship, she was admitted to a hospital last week and suffered a miscarriage. She is now suing the company for one million Euros in damages. The Herald Sun reports... Read more
The National Catholic Register has a good, long piece on the diaconate in its newest issue, marking the 45th anniversary of the restoration of the restoration of the order in the Latin Church: Deacon Thomas Dubois, executive director of the National Association of Diaconate Directors, believes that the rapid growth of the permanent diaconate in the U.S. is a “work of the Holy Spirit.” He remarked, “The irony is that the Second Vatican Council fathers thought the diaconate would grow... Read more
It’s in Florida: For years, Cathy Cardinal was a spiritual pilgrim, filing into government offices in Viera to take Holy Communion while praying alongside her fellow believers for a permanent place to worship. “After a while, the government building got too small for what we needed. It was confusing for a while, but we were very grateful it was available,” said Cardinal, who moved with her husband from Omaha, Neb., to retire in Viera. The fledgling Catholic flock, which incorporated... Read more
Gerald Seib of the Wall Street Journal is beginning to wonder: If you want to find the absolute center in American politics, you could do worse than look at the nation’s Catholic vote. In nine of the past 10 presidential elections, the Catholic vote has gone with the candidate who ultimately won the election. Five times it has gone to a Republican; five times to a Democrat. In five of those elections, the percentage of the Catholic vote taken by... Read more
Details, from a column in USA TODAY: Today, virtually all American women use contraception at some point in their lives. And we have a large body of medical evidence showing it has significant benefits for their health, as well as the health of their children. But birth control can also be quite expensive, costing an average of $600 a year, which puts it out of reach for many women whose health plans don’t cover it. The public health case for... Read more
Sorry. My mistake. It’s K-Lo. I really should have my eyes checked. Anyway: she’s better known as Kathryn Jean Lopez, the editor-at-large of the National Review Online (NRO, to the blog savvy) and she has a shiny new blog here at Patheos called, fittingly, K-Lo at Large. She describes it as her “casual corner” — isn’t that a woman’s clothing store? — and a place where she will ruminating on matters religious and, no doubt, a lot of other topics,... Read more
The Deacon's Bench
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