Axelrod: Might be room for “compromise” on HHS Mandate UPDATES!

Last updated on: March 4, 2017 at 12:23 am By Elizabeth Scalia

UPDATE II: Steven D. Greydanus spells it out: Sure enough, in a press conference this afternoon, press secretary Jay Carney reaffirmed Obama’s commitment to the HHS mandate as it stands, though he declined to comment on whether the president would override a veto promised by Republican leadership. We are committed, the president is committed, to ensuring that woman have access to contraception without any extra cost, regardless of where they work. So, there you have it. When Axelrod says “we... Read more

HHS Mandate and Conscience: they hate what they do not know

Last updated on: March 4, 2017 at 12:23 am By Elizabeth Scalia

There is that great quote from Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen: There are not more than 100 people in the world who truly hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they perceive to be the Catholic Church. Which is, of course, quite a different thing. My First Things column today responds to some of what I’ve seen in my email and my comboxes over the past week or so, as regards the HHS Mandate (and perhaps the... Read more

“Say it ain’t so, O! Say it ain’t so!” – UPDATE

Last updated on: March 4, 2017 at 12:23 am By Elizabeth Scalia

Deacon Keith Fournier has reprinted (by permission) a letter sent by Doug Kmiec, the CUA professor of law who worked passionately to elect Obama because he believed — reasonably or un, and I have always thought “un” — that Senator Obama’s 100% NARAL approval rating would ultimately end up serving life. The letter (and this is just my opinion) reads like a kid tugging at his hero’s suit and pleading, “O, say it ain’t so!”; it’s the distressed cry of... Read more

K-Lo at Large, Now at Patheos!

Last updated on: March 4, 2017 at 12:23 am By Elizabeth Scalia

She is the editor-at-large at National Review Online, and taking just a quick glance at her curriculum vitae, you might be forgiven for thinking of Kathryn Jean Lopez as one of the busiest women in media: An award-winning opinion journalist who has been praised for her “editorial daring,” Lopez is also a nationally syndicated columnist with Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association. Besides commissioning, editing, and writing pieces as editor and editor-at-large of NRO for more than a decade, her... Read more

Kelly Clarkson and the Anthem

Last updated on: March 4, 2017 at 12:23 am By Elizabeth Scalia

I thought Kelly Clarkson did a great job on the Star Spangled Banner last night; not overdone, just the right embellishments and she knew the words! She didn’t sex it up at “perilous fight” as some try to. She was in control throughout. Read more

The Cheese Stands Alone With a Question

Last updated on: March 4, 2017 at 12:24 am By Elizabeth Scalia

Well, my week of guest bloggers has passed, and I offer all of them my heartfelt thanks for their enormous output, their engagement in the comboxes, and their generosity in sharing their gifts with us. I hope you really enjoyed them. I know I did. They disproved Ben Franklin’s adage that “fish and company stink after three days.” I kind of liked having them around! But they’ve all gone home. Father Dwight Longenecker has gone back to Standing on His... Read more

The day looks different if you don’t just stumble into it”

Last updated on: March 4, 2017 at 12:24 am By Elizabeth Scalia

This is a really enjoyable report from the Catholic News Service, on dear our Pope Benedict XVI and his personal prayer: And something to think about on this Sunday: One should therefore deplore certain attitudes of mind which are sometimes found even among Christians because of a failure to recognize the legitimate autonomy of science. These mental attitudes have given rise to conflict and controversy and led many to assume that faith and science are mutually opposed. If, on the... Read more

Merci! À bientôt!

Last updated on: March 4, 2017 at 12:24 am By Kathy Schiffer

Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden. –Mark Twain, writing in Tom Sawyer, 1876 OK, folks, replace the name “Tom” with “Elizabeth.” Got it? Good—Now get rid of the long-handled brush and the fence. Instead, set the... Read more

Laughing at Lucifer in Lent

Last updated on: March 4, 2017 at 12:24 am By Fr. Dwight Longenecker

It’s been out for a couple of years now, but if you haven’t read Gargoyle Code, then you really should. It is my book for Lent. It follows the style of C.S.Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, but it is updated, written for Catholics and has one letter per day all through Lent–beginning with Shrove Tuesday and ending on Easter Day. Slubgrip is the demon in question, and while he looks after his elderly patient–a traditionalist Catholic–he is advising the junior demons on... Read more

C. S. Lewis: Finding Faith On the Way to the Zoo

Last updated on: March 4, 2017 at 12:24 am By Kathy Schiffer

Men Must Endure Their Going Hence. So warns Edgar in Shakespeare’s classic King Lear. And so says the tombstone shared by illustrious Christian apologist Clive Staples Lewis and his brother Warren. The tombstone, located in the yard of Holy Trinity Church in Headington Quarry, Oxford, commemorates the writer C.S. “Jack” Lewis, who died 48 years ago on November 23, 1963, and his quieter older brother who died in April 1973. Lewis was one of the intellectual giants of the 20th... Read more