Back when people actually had valets, it was a truism that nobody could be a hero to his own. From that it must follow that no spiritual writer is holy in his editor’s eyes. Certainly, that’s the first impression I got from reading Orbis Books publisher Robert Ellsberg’s essay on editing Henri Nouwen. To Ellsberg fell the task of facing the original wounded healer when he was at his sorest: Despite Henri’s reservations, I accepted the job at Orbis. Our... Read more
Today’s New York Times reports that families who obtain children through new and unconventional means are finding themselves flummoxed when it comes to defining relationships: When Ms. Ashmore and her husband, Lee, learned a few years ago that they could not conceive a child, Ms. Williams stepped in and offered to become pregnant with a donor’s sperm on behalf of the couple, and give birth to the child. The baby, Mallory, was born in September 2007 and adopted by Ms.... Read more
An old Catholic axiom holds that whoever enters the conclave a papabile, leaves a cardinal. If that’s true, what happens to ranking churchmen who are touted as papabile before the current pope so much as comes down with the sniffles? Nothing too bad, I hope. A startling number of Catholic pundits are pinning the Church’s hopes on Cardinal Angelo Scola, recently elevated by Pope Benedict to the archbishopric of Milan. I must say, I like the cut of his jib.... Read more
Probably, this will fail to shock most of my readers, but….Christopher Hitchens doesn’t seem to get it. Why, oh why, he wonders in Slate, do presidential candidates feel compelled to play up their rural roots — or, when necessary, to invent some — at the expense of their learning and sophistication: Where does it come from, this silly and feigned idea that it’s good to be able to claim a small-town background? It was once said that rural America moved... Read more
MSNBC’s Mark Halperin drew an indefinite suspension for calling President Obama…well, something he hadn’t oughta never called him. at least according to network executives. “Mark Halperin’s comments this morning were completely inappropriate and unacceptable,” said MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines in a statement. “We apologize to the President, the White House and all of our viewers. We strive for a high level of discourse and comments like these have no place on our air.” Appearing on “Morning Joe” this morning, Halperin,... Read more
Yesterday was a milestone in my blogging career: for the first time, I banned someone — two people, actually. To my other guests, who’d complained about the visitors’ bad behavior, I posted apologies, assuring them that I hated taking such drastic measures, that the burden of crimping the right of self-expression weighed heavily on my conscience. But that was nonsense. The grim and ugly truth is, it felt wonderful. “Nearly all men can stand adversity,” Abraham Lincoln once said. “But... Read more
According to a smarmy truism, you can make God laugh by telling Him your plans. Judging by todays’ Times headlines, you can make public opinion laugh by telling it your agenda. On one side, there’s the news that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has signed gay marriage into legal existence. In this, he reflected attitudes prevalent not only in New York, but increasingly, across the nation. The latest Gallup polls show that 53% of Americans believe same-sex marriages should be... Read more
On Friday, the New York Times ran a feature article on St. Martin of Tours, a Bronx elementary school that closed the previous Wednesday after a run of 86 years. In the words of the Times, St. Martin’s had survived “gang fights, racial unrest and crack wars,” and “helped generations of immigrant children become Americans” and propelled “Latino and African-American children into the middle class after the tumult of the 1960s, when drastic changes washed over both the church and... Read more
Yahoo! News reports: Dublin, Ireland – Rioting engulfed the Short Strand district of Belfast, Northern Ireland, Tuesday night, as pro-British loyalists and Irish republican residents of the area clashed for the second consecutive day. Local police said that as many as 400 people participated in the violence and that a news photographer was wounded in a shooting in one of Belfast’s most tense neighborhoods. In an effort to break up the fights, police fired at least 66 plastic bullets but... Read more
“I’m not a quitter,” insisted the bearded priest-turned talk-radio host in his famous stentorian basso. “But people who know me, know that, besides faith and family, nothing is more imporant to me than our beloved Alaska. My particular mission was speaking, writing, and teaching—not so much in the sacraments, but outside of them, in conjunction with them. So what I’m going to be doing in the future is pretty much the same thing.” Wait, wait, wait. Did Corapi really say... Read more
Diary of a Wimpy Catholic
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