A member of our parish who is an expert on the Church in China remarked that China is no longer really Communist but is instead a ‘totalitarian market economy”. You can see something of the Chinese attempt to combine the absolute worst features of the Western Left and the Right in stories like this one. The bright side is that, in the spiritual desert created by Chinese communism, the Church is growing explosively. It will be hilarious when the day... Read more

If you mosey over to the Ignatius Insight blog, Carl is busy replying to all the dumb stuff being pumped out by our Manufacturers of Leftist culture in celebration of Obama at ND. I don’t have much to add to the central point that vox populi is not vox Dei. Read more

What are you hearing about your new books, Mary, Mother of the Son? They are lovely, Mark. I can hear Fr. Neuhaus’ voice as I read the Forward! I am having a difficult time just reading – I am skipping all over and skipping in three books is a bit wild. I always feel weird when people ask me stuff like this, because any link to a positive review feels like grotesque boasting, while any link to negative reviews feels... Read more

So I’m minding my own business the other day when this drops into my mailbox with me on the cc list. The author, one “David L.” who I do not know from Adam, is apparently arguing with some other rad trad, who has arraigned somebody named “Howard” for the grave sin of knowing somebody named “Mark Shea”. David writes to assure him that the Mark Shea he knows is not, God forbid, me. To prove it, he cc’s the other... Read more

inadvertantly demonstrates the fact that you have only the choice of what you will worship, not *whether* you will worship. Every atheist is, whether he realizes it or not, the founder of a new religion. Read more

inadvertantly demonstrates the fact that you have only the choice of what you will worship, not *whether* you will worship. Every atheist is, whether he realizes it or not, the founder of a new religion. Read more

…that if you get a few drinks in Joe Biden, he would lay claim to the invention of mathematics, brag about the time he planted the flag on the moon, and give the go codes to our nuclear arsenal to the waitress. He doesn’t seem to me to be a wicked man, just a garrulous old fool. Read more

A reader writes: Please, please pray for a dear friend of mine who’s currently out of work. She’s a feminist who’s apparently drank more deeply of the cultural Kool-Aid than I suspected, because when she was doing her resume blitz, one of the organizations she applied for was an pro-choice PAC. Please pray that she doesn’t even get a call back from them and that she finds another job. Also, please pray for me, because I apparently have some very... Read more

A reader writes: Please, please pray for a dear friend of mine who’s currently out of work. She’s a feminist who’s apparently drank more deeply of the cultural Kool-Aid than I suspected, because when she was doing her resume blitz, one of the organizations she applied for was an pro-choice PAC. Please pray that she doesn’t even get a call back from them and that she finds another job. Also, please pray for me, because I apparently have some very... Read more

In my view, the singular focus upon abortion as THE issue over which conservative Catholics will brook no divergence and around which we are called to rally reveals, to my mind, not evidence of robust Catholic culture as much as its absence. It seems to me that – along with the opposition to gay marriage – this issue represents the last stand, the inner-most wall barely keeping the hordes from overrunning the sanctum. The ferocity over this issue – and... Read more