I haven’t written about the obsessive early polling of presidential candidates for one simple reason: I think it’s ridiculous. Asking voters a year or more out from an election who they will vote for is like asking a 12-year-old girl to describe her future husband. What you will get in either case is a dream scenario that does not resemble what will actually happen when things get real. I also think that debates this far out are, in a word,... Read more
Ross Douthat write op-ed posts for the New York Times. He recently wrote a post that contained opinions that inflamed certain members of the administration and faculties of more than one prominent Catholic university. Instead of making their own case for what they believed, these folks sent a letter to the New York Times that certainly sounds as if they want the newspaper to fire Mr Douthat for his wrong thinking. I wrote a post about this nonsense for the... Read more
This is unfathomable on the basis of discrimination or any of the other claims that have been made concerning this parade. It is, to use a word I frequently apply to today’s cultural deconstruction, nihilism. From Crisis Magazine: Twenty-five years ago, a small group of activists charged the New York City Saint Patrick’s Day Parade with being a public gesture of pure homophobia. They built their case around the allegedly bigoted “Catholic character.” The trial was held before the judges of... Read more
The Synod on the Family has finally adjourned, leaving behind a document for us to read and ponder. In many ways, this Synod, like the one last year, ended up resembling the United States Congress. Here are a few of those ways. 1. Most of what they talked about doing was so disturbing that the people in the pews breathed a sigh of relief that, in the end, they did nothing. People were praying, saying their rosaries, signing petitions and... Read more
My colleague Kate O’Hare interviewed Chaldean Catholic Bishop Mar Bahai Soro about the holocaust of Christians that is taking place in the Middle East. To be honest, reading this interview put the hijinks of the Synod on the Family in perspective. It made the whole thing seem a little bit like an exercise in rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. It would have been better to hold a Synod on Christian persecution in much of the world, coupled as it... Read more
Father Dwight Longenecker went on a rant, and it was too true. The only thing I would add is that there are a bushel and a peck of conservative hypocrites to sit on the shelf alongside the liberals. But that is another post, one which I need to write. Here’s part of what Father Dwight said: The attack on hypocrites in religion typically focusses on the uptight, self righteous conservative Catholic who judges others while they themselves are guilty of the... Read more
Want an insider’s view of the Synod? Check out Archbishop Mark Coleridge’s blog. He gives a daily update on the doings from his catbird seat on the inside. It’s engaging, informative and fun. Here’s a sample: When we made it back into the Hall yesterday, the Secretary General said the Pope wanted to say a word. My ears pricked up. This Pope doesn’t take the microphone just for the sake of it. What’s going on here, I thought. Well, again... Read more
Pope Francis has enacted an internal reform of the Vatican by combining Family, Laity and Life into one dicastery. I don’t understand the inner workings of the Vatican. But looking at this from the outside, it makes sense. If I am correct, a dicastery is a department within the Curia. The ministries relating to family, laity and life are certainly bound together by common interests. From Catholic News Agency: Vatican City, Oct 22, 2015 / 11:27 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis... Read more
Mary Rezac, at Catholic News Agency, wrote a pithy summary of the German bishops’ efforts to change pastoral practice within the Catholic Church as it applies to marriage. Here’s part of what she said: Ok everyone, last German bishops blog for the duration of #Synod15! (At least, I think. I hope?) As they near the end of an eventful three weeks, the 13 small groups of the Synod on the Family, divided by language, have released their last reports before the conclusion... Read more
I wish that the Synod on the Family had been able to spend more time considering ways in which the modern world destroys families, often from the inside out. If they had, drug addiction would surely have found a way onto the list. Nothing is more insidious or difficult to address than drug addict family members. The rest of the family ends up paying a horrendous price for the love they feel for the addict, and the addict is destroyed... Read more
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