Paul Ryan’s hometown bishop has defended him. The bishop of Lansing, Michigan and the archbishop of Kansas City broke ranks to wonder aloud whether the USCCB’s condemnation of his proposed budget looked excessively partisan. With the exception of Mark Shea, practically every Catholic pundit to the right of America and National Catholic Reporter has agreed, more or less, that Ryan seems okay, is a good old boy, one of us, his love affair with the thinking of Ayn Rand just... Read more
I woke up Saturday morning in a funk. In itself, this is nothing unusual. But, over the next few hours, the funk thickened and blackened until, by noon or thereabouts, it had entombed me. It was one of those miasmic, suffocating funks that poisons all of my thoughts while they’re still struggling to get out of my head. You’ll never escape your present circumstances, I was unable to resist thinking. Not this skid row apartment, not this stifling, book-strewn room... Read more
To the average Irish person, it might come as a surprise that William III of England, whose invasion of Ireland and victory at the Boyne paved the way for Protestant hegemony throughout the country, acted with tacit Papal blessing. The Catholic King James II, William’s rival, was an ally of Louis XIV; the Papal States, under Pope Alexander VIII, belonged to the Grand Alliance that had formed with the aim of thwarting Louis’ ambitions on the Continent. At least by... Read more
These days, Philadelphia archbishop Charles Chaput has been showing signs of America fatigue. “Democracy,” he told an audience at the Napa Institute this past July 26th, “is not an end in itself.” The mainstreaming of American Catholicism hasn’t made America more Christian, much less more Catholic; instead, it’s weakened Catholic witness. “Sooner or later,” Chaput warned, “a nation based on a degraded notion of liberty, on license rather than real freedom — in other words, a nation of abortion, disordered... Read more
In Crisis Magazine, Eve Tushnet argues that the Catholic Church has something unique to offer gays and lesbians besides guilt and self-loathing. For one, it offers physicality — bells, smells, images and “the hint of cannibalism” in the Eucharist — bound to appeal to those persecuted for their bodies’ own strange habits. For lesbians in particular, it offers love-objects that Protestantism withholds. “Catholic lesbians,” she writes, “can yearn for Mother Church; we can yearn for the Virgin. Catholicism offered same-sex... Read more
In an episode from South Park’s sixth season, Butters, embittered over his demotion from Kenny’s replacement to supporting character, declares war on humanity. Forging a suit of armor out of tinfoil, he adopts an alter ego, Professor Chaos, and proceeds to bring what he calls “destruction and doom,” to the community. Fortunately for the community (and for him) his idea of destruction and doom involves switching the orders at a local diner. Even the local paper won’t cover it. Some... Read more
Something frivolous. A mashup, according to Wiki, is “a work of fiction which combines a pre-existing text, often a classic work of fiction, with a certain popular genre.” If you translate the catchphrase from those old Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups commercials into cultural terms — “You got your schlock in my classic!” “No, you got your classic in my schlock!” — you’ve got the idea. Mashups are goofy and gimmicky, but, like fanfic, they can emerge from a true-blue geeklike... Read more
It’s easy to draw parallels between Penn State’s pedophilia scandal and the Church’s. It’s also easy to stretch those parallels too far, or toward the wrong conclusions. This is what Nicholas P. Cafardi does in a piece titled “Patriarchies and the Powerless,” published this past Friday on America Magazine’s In All Things blog. Finding that the conspiratorial behavior of Penn State’s all-male athletic department conforms to a “paradigm of patriarchy,” Cafardi asks, “what is unique about patriarchies” that gives them... Read more
Something’s got to give. Lately, that’s what a number of observers have been warning. The Body of Christ is being tugged in too many directions simultaneously; it can only be a matter of time before limbs start tearing away. Just this past week, Oxford professor Diarmaid MacCulloch predicted “a very great split over the Vatican’s failure to listen to European Catholics.” MacCulloch never says exactly what European Catholics are shouting into the Church’s deaf ear, but since he refers to... Read more
The first Catholic church I ever entered as an adult was St. Mary’s, in Tempe, Arizona. Built in 1903, it’s the oldest Catholic church anywhere in the Valley of the Sun. Until a recent tricking-out, it was the very soul of simplicity, with hardwood floors and pews, and a single statue of the Blessed Mother standing just before the sanctuary. It had its decorative touches — tall, arched windows through which poured the warm morning sunlight and a beautiful rose... Read more
Diary of a Wimpy Catholic
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