Here’s an old joke: Sometime in the 1930s, one Jew spots another Jew scanning an issue of Der Stürmer, the Nazi party’s official newspaper. He asks, “How come you’re reading that trash?” “Well,” says his friend, “all the Jewish papers talk about is how we’re being beaten up and oppressed. This one says we control the world. I guess I just needed a pick-me-up.” Barely a day after the White House announced its revision of the guidelines ensuring free contraception... Read more
In the battle over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Catholics are sitting on a string of small victories. Richard Doerflinger of the Bishop’s Conference’s Secretariat on Pro-Life Activities has declared compromise a no sale. For every pundit defending President Obama outright — as Salon’s Joan Walsh does when she calls on Catholics to “preach what we practice” regarding birth control — two or three are pleading for reconciliation. In the Washington Post, Melissa Rogers calls for a “Win-Win”... Read more
The international rumor mill has it that Fidel Castro — El Jefe, El Commandante, or El Barbudo, to those who know him best — will be returning to the Catholic fold during Pope Benedict’s upcoming visit to Cuba. According to a post on GetReligion.org, the “anti-clerical” Italian paper La Republicca is claiming Castro has “turned to God for solace.” A story on ABC’s Global News Blog quotes Castro’s daughter Alina: “During this last period, Fidel has come closer to religion:... Read more
There’s a strange symmetry between British singer M.I.A. and pro-life activist Randall Terry. Both have dedicated their careers, to one degree or another, to raising awareness of genocide. In her songs and videos, M.I.A. (born Maya Arulpragasam) refers to the repression of her people, Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority, at the hands of the nation’s Sinhalese majority. Terry might qualify as America’s most fervent and ubiquitous pro-life activist. After years of perfecting their respective brands of guerila chic, both struck Sunday... Read more
When it comes to football and its risks, writes Ken Briggs in National Catholic Reporter, Catholic scholars may be caught in a spiral of silence. Briggs finds that a sampling of these scholars, while believing “the medical hazards exposed by the research raise serious questions” about the wisdom of continuing the game, has chosen to soft-pedal them, fearing “stormy protests by fans and financial backers.” Briggs is right that recent research shows players are at graver risk than anyone could... Read more
According to an old aphorism, a little anti-Semitism is good for Jews. Since the Obama administration announced the guidelines for its Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a new consensus has emerged that a little anti-Catholicism is good for Catholics. On its blog, the USCCB proudly declares “a true ‘here comes everybody’ moment,” and dsplays the growing list of Catholic commentators who have condemned the president. Everybody — or at least everybody who’s part of everybody — seems awfully eager... Read more
I totally spaced my patron saint’s feast day. Indeed, I might have gone all day without being any the wiser, but some friends posted clues to my Facebook wall. One, a video commemorating the fourth centennary of the founding of the Order of the Visitation, just made me go, “Mm. Very nice for the, er, Visitationists.” The second, a Peter Maxish image of a bearded man cradling a dove, his bald dome lit by a halo, made me pull a... Read more
Maybe I should make like Mark Wahlberg (whose brother, Donnie, I was said in happier times to resemble) and mark the end of my youth by getting my tattoos lasered away. But — nah. They’re not hurting anyone. At least one of them, a cross formed by the title of Pushkin’s poem “Ne dai mne, Bog, soiti s uma” (“Don’t Let Me Lose My Mind, O God”), has real talismanic value. Besides, the procedure costs a lot of money. I... Read more
Joanne McPortland is one of those very rare, too-modest writers who deserves to be read more than she actually wants to be read. For the sake of Catholic letters’ good name, I am going to drag her, kicking and screaming, into my own small sliver of the limelight. By the age of 60, Joanne’s made a faith journey full of loops and detours, flat tires and long waits on the shoulder for the Triple-A truck. A cradle Catholic, she fondly... Read more
James Dobson, scourge of Spongebob and the Teletubbies, has found a live target. Speaking this weekend at a conference in Texas, he condemned Callista Gingrich as “a mistress for eight years.” Karen Santorum, who “set aside two professional careers to raise those seven children,” he said, would “make a fabulous first lady role model.” Dobson’s very use of the word “fabulous” is sign enough the world’s spun right off its axis. But in Forbes, Victoria Pynchon predicts his point will... Read more
Diary of a Wimpy Catholic
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