A bit of context: last week, the Archdiocese of Chicago hosted a “summit” for all its priests and other parish staff (deacons, pastoral associates, etc.) during which Fr. James Mallon presented his parish renewal program, Divine Renovation. The person who pointed me to this said that it was his understanding that Cardinal Cupich intended for each parish to adopt this program, which had me immediately wary that a program in use by a small number of self-selected parishes could be... Read more
Here’s an, er, interesting outcome of yesterday’s Kavanaugh confirmation vote: liberals are, at least on Twitter, (again) suggesting that the Senate is “broken” because small states have the same representation as large states. Here’s Matt Yglesias, https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1049032896177164288 and after pushback, a follower of his replied, ah true, you'd have to keep a ceremonial body called the Senate if you read that to mean they can't abolish the Senate — 工an Monroe (@eean) October 7, 2018 And here’s Ken Dilanian from... Read more
Two items in the news today: first, a report that, whaddayaknow, Rauner’s ad about Pritzker’s toilet-removing tax-cheating scheme was not just fake news: “Cook County watchdog says ‘scheme to defraud’ saved Pritzker $330,000 in property taxes” Billionaire Democratic governor candidate J.B. Pritzker improperly received $330,000 in property tax breaks on one of his Gold Coast mansions as part of a “scheme to defraud” taxpayers, Cook County’s top watchdog concluded. Inspector General Patrick Blanchard’s finding came in a report issued after... Read more
Yes, I know, the answer is, “because it’s exposing how evil the Other Side is.” (Many) conservatives are convinced that the Left is engaged in a mission of destroying a perfectly upstanding man because of their determination to leave the Supreme Court seat open until after the midterms, or because, even if they accept that the GOP will choose who they wish, they have too much anger about the prospect of a conservative judge replacing “their” Kennedy. (Many) liberals are... Read more
With apologies for the lack of citations, here is a list of things that can simultaneously be true, notwithstanding claims in the media to the contrary: Kavanaugh can be guilty of one or more of these acts AND the Democratic Senate leadership can be abusing the process. Yes, the Democrats are, from all appearances, acting in bad faith. The opposed Kavanaugh from the start, and many of them have professed opposition to any individual Trump would nominate. In some cases,... Read more
First, some marijuana-use statistics, from a 2017 Marist poll, as featured originally in a Washington Post article: When asked by phone about pot use, 52% of American adults reported having tried pot. 22% report that they are “current” users (within last year). 14% describe themselves as “regular” users (within last month). Of current and regular users, 52% are Millennials (defined here as 18 – 34 years old). (Yes, the same prevalence is true of each category). Or, put another... Read more
Three items from my twitter feed. Item 1: the Pope. On CNN the other day, “Pope admits the Church has lost credibility over sex abuse scandal.” Pope Francis told a crowd of young people in the Estonian capital Tallinn on Tuesday that he understood that many of them were “upset” by the sexual abuse scandals rocking the Catholic Church and that the institution had lost credibility as a result. It was his first reference to the sex abuse crisis since... Read more
Over the weekend, we had a new report, that the last person at the party recounted by Christine Blasey Ford has been identified as Leland Keyser. This means that the attendees at the party would have been Ford, Keyser, Kavanaugh, Judge, and the previously-identified Patrick Smyth. Separately, the original letter sent by Ford to Senator Feinstein’s office has now been released. (Legal Insurrection has the link to a tweet by NBC News.) This letter makes clear what had been unclear for... Read more
It’s a quiet weekend so I pulled out a book I had picked up at the library, Unbelievable, Why Neither Ancient Creeds Nor the Reformation Can Produce a Living Faith Today, by John Shelby Spong. Yes, that Spong, who is still writing at the age of 87, though in the introduction he says it’s his last book because of a stroke. I started to read the book, then concluded that hate-reading isn’t a particularly good use of my time, so... Read more
It’s the fifteenth Ordinary General Synod of Bishops since these began post-Vatican II, and it has as its topic Young People, Faith, and Vocational Discernment, but, readers, I’ll be honest, I’ve tried to read the Instrumentum Laboris, the document which serves as an agenda/guiding document for the synod and I just didn’t really get it. Today a friend shared a critique of the synod which reinforced my confusion and concerns. This synod is the successor synod to the Synod of the Family... Read more
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