There may be something to Lisa Mladinich’s view that as a nation we have become so suspect of authority that we have lost sight of our responsibility to wield authority (or perhaps, “holy authority”) when it comes to our children or our students. It’s not just your imagination. The problem of kids who won’t behave in class is getting worse. We can take the easy way out and blame parents, claiming they just can’t be bothered to discipline their children,... Read more
This is Vocation Awareness Week — one of my favorite weeks of the year, because (as regular readers know) I get to bring out the Nun News Network banner (designed by reader Brian J.) and discuss all things nunny (and priestly, friarly, monkish and so forth) Let’s begin here, with the Solemn Profession of a Poor Clare Nun as covered by the St. Louis Review: The sign of a woman’s true strength is not a measure of independence or success,... Read more
Compline for Sunday Compline for Monday Compline for Tuesday Compline for Wednesday Compline for Thursday Compline for Friday Compline for Saturday Read more
In 1989 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith delivered a Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Some Aspects of Christian Meditation. In Section V of that document, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) wrote: “Just as ‘the Catholic Church rejects nothing of what is true and holy in [the great religions]’ neither should these ways be rejected out of hand simply because they are not Christian. On the contrary, one can take from them... Read more
The question of the year, and it’s a new year: Read more
Have you ever looked back on a moment of your life, and discovered that as you’re pondering, you are shaking your head in regret for your actions? Abby Johnson, writing about the abortion that changed her life, is doing more than shaking her head. She is using her contrition to educate women about the reality of the genuine violence they permit to occur, within their wombs–within the core of their own bodies–during an abortion. “Thirteen weeks,” I heard the nurse... Read more
Is it satire? I’m not sure. The disrobing part, I may never get out of my head! Thank Bookie for this! Read more
The move from First Things has made old posts difficult to find in search engines right now. This is reposted by request from reader Mark S.; I found it via google cache, as July 2009 seems to be missing from my archives in the move. Jim Geraghty is trying to get to the bottom of the over-the-top hate the left feels for Sarah Palin, a hate that seems to intensified, rather than ebbed-away since the election. Well, some of that... Read more
Some might remember reading Shana Buck’s moving piece last month, where she wondered about the conceptual perceptions of her son who is autistic. Last weeks news that the certain “studies” linking autism to vaccines were fraudulent finds Shana pondering what parents are supposed to do, and who they should trust: Something is causing the rise in actual numbers of autistic children, something besides ‘better diagnosis’. What should I, as the mother of one child with autism and another with Asperger’s... Read more
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