w/very moving photo: The #PilgrimageofMercy, the tour of the major relics of St. Maria Goretti has officially begun! This is first time her sacred remains have visited the USA. St. Maria Goretti began her US tour by visiting Sing Sing Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in NY, where the inmates had the opportunity to venerate the relics of the “Little Saint of Mercy”—seeking the Mercy of God that the 11 year old Maria witnessed as she forgave her murder... Read more
I have a ton of these lying around so you’ll be getting them in small chunks. Trying to give each batch a range of themes and moods. “How Some Alabama Hospitals Quietly Drug Test New Mothers–Without Their Consent”: In Alabama, a positive drug test can have dire repercussions for pregnant women and new mothers. Their newborns can be taken from them. They can lose custody of their other children. They can face lengthy sentences in the most notorious women’s prison... Read more
writes: …Turkle here is indicating that there is a strong connection between empathy and solitude. I am reminded (beyond Louis CK) of Pascal’s famous line about humanity’s problems consisting of “man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” (Two Pascal lines this week?!) Turkle here conveys the human need to sit down with one’s self, to deal with one’s self, and while she doesn’t cover any religious dimensions, it is where prayer happens. For Christianity in particular, this is where repentance can... Read more
They are really potatoes! This is my lunch today. It is extremely straightforward but it’s an idea I wouldn’t have considered if I hadn’t seen a recipe that inspired me. There are a couple ways you can do it: the way described in the recipe I’m riffing on, or the lazy way. Guess which I picked. What I used: a medium russet potato; butter; chopped garlic; chopped jalapeno; canned chickpeas; ground cumin and cinnamon. A microwave and a small nonstick... Read more
on a recurring theme here: …As the episode with the baffled usher illustrates, some people simply aren’t used to non-communicants. During one early-morning Mass at St. Paul the Apostle Church in Manhattan, I approached the celebrant with my arms crossed. (This was before I had been properly briefed on how barbarous an abuse of the liturgy abuse this constitutes.) The poor priest tried to thrust the Host into my mouth, forcing me to block his hand with the crux of... Read more
woohoo! In her hilarious first novel, Amends, just released this past August, Eve Tushnet brings together a lively troupe of totally unhinged characters to participate in a reality TV show about addiction. The novel’s “talent” (the cast) lugs around dark histories and fears and sins, but their instability makes them not only interesting but also completely approachable. more Read more
At Vox, Ezra Klein raises an important meta-theoretical point in social science analysis, which is that it is very hard to distinguish mechanisms from controls. If there is a zero-order correlation between X1 and Y, but it drops out when you introduce X2, this in of itself does not tell you if the X1~Y relationship is spurious or if it is mediated. If being shot at is correlated with death, but the effect falls out of significance once you control... Read more
“Some Inmates Who Met Pope Francis Are Only in Jail Because They’re Poor”: PHILADELPHIA — When Pope Francis visited an overcrowded prison on Sunday, he talked to inmates about the need for “rehabilitation” and for inmates to get “back on the right road.” What he may not have realized is that most of the inmates being held in Philadelphia’s Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility have not yet been convicted of a crime. Some of the inmates who met Pope Francis have been charged with... Read more
(sorry–ANYWAY this is the transcript of the presentation by Ron Belgau and his mom): …I don’t think my 17-year-old self could ever have imagined my dad being as passionate as he is about protecting kids from homophobia. But it’s a reminder everyone can grow and transform. Turning back the clock to my adolescence, it never really hit home to me just how big a burden I was carrying until I was telling the story to a friend in college. He... Read more
First of all, you can buy the book and I would be quite grateful if you reviewed it at Amazon. You can also review it at Goodreads if you’re a Goodreads person. All of this helps the book get to other people who might like it. Max Lindemann reviewed it; Zach Noble reviewed it. It has a Facebook page for some reason? And I may as well re-link Wesley Hill’s neat piece fitting its themes into my other writing. More... Read more
Eve Tushnet
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