After days of angry headlines about the murder of an abortionist, one of America’s most articulate defenders of life knew it was time for candor. “If anyone has an urge to kill someone at an abortion clinic, they should shoot me,” said the late Cardinal John O’Connor, preaching to his New York City flock in 1994. “It’s madness. It discredits the right-to-life movement. Murder is murder. It’s madness. You cannot prevent killing by killing.” The cardinal’s famous soundbite was part... Read more
KIEV, Ukraine — Merely saying the forest’s name — Bykivnya — can cause strong emotions for millions of Ukrainians. This is where the secret police of Soviet strongman Joseph Stalin buried 100,000 of their victims between 1937 and 1941 in a mass grave northeast of Kiev. President Victor Yushchenko did not mince words during his recent speech there, on Ukraine’s Day of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repression. “Here, at Bykivnya, Stalin and his monstrous hangmen killed the bloom of... Read more
It was hard to ignore the papal bull condemning the slave trade, which was read to American Catholic leaders gathered in Baltimore in 1839. Pope Gregory XVI proclaimed that “no one in the future dare to vex anyone, despoil him of his possessions, reduce to servitude, or lend aid and favor to those who give themselves up to these practices, or exercise that inhuman traffic by which the Blacks, as if they were not men but rather animals, having been... Read more
President Dwight Eisenhower’s Civil Rights Commission faced high hurdles as it searched for common ground in the tense years after the U.S. Supreme Court began attacking the walls of segregation inside America’s schools. After several years of struggle, Father Theodore Hesburgh discovered a bond between his commission colleagues that transcended race and regional differences, noted President Barack Obama, in his historic commencement address at the University of Notre Dame. All of them liked to fish. Thus, the president of America’s... Read more
Screenwriter Joe Eszterhas knows all about strange plot twists and he is convinced that God often sends big messages in the final acts of people’s lives. Once a scandalous Hollywood insider, the author of twisted thrillers such as “Basic Instinct” and “Jagged Edge” can quote chapter and verse about life and death in Tinseltown. Consider the ruthless movie mogul who died during a beach vacation when a metal bar fell from a construction crane and pieced his heart. Or how... Read more
The women’s clinic nurse confirmed that Lacy Dodd was pregnant, and then told her not to worry because she had “other options.” That wasn’t the kind of reassurance Dodd wanted, as a University of Notre Dame senior weeks away from her graduation ceremonies. When she returned to campus, Dodd headed straight to Notre Dame’s grotto — a small cave modeled after the famous Marian shrine in Lourdes, France. “I knew this: No amount of shame or embarrassment would ever lead... Read more
Don Whitney knows what happens when people hear that a Southern Baptist seminary is offering a doctor of philosophy degree in spirituality. “For many people, connecting ‘Baptist’ and ‘spirituality’ is like ‘military’ and ‘intelligence.’ They just can’t picture those two words together,” said Whitney, director of the new Center for Biblical Spirituality at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. But for Baptists, he stressed, it’s crucial to underline the word “biblical” in front “spirituality,” in order to stress the... Read more
It may take time, but it’s hard for a Catholic educator to publicly praise the work of nuns who have bravely leapt “beyond Jesus” without drawing some flack — especially in the Internet age. During this era of crisis and decline, some Catholic religious orders have chosen to enter a time of “sojourning” that involves “moving beyond the church, even beyond Jesus,” Sinsinawa Dominican Sister Laurie Brink told a 2007 national gathering of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. “Religious... Read more
In most news reports, Mother Teresa seemed like such a nice, quiet holy woman. But as any reporter who actually interviewed her quickly learned, Calcutta’s “saint of the gutters” could be remarkably blunt. She once noted — in a half-serious jest — that she would rather bath a leper than meet the press. “Mother was not known for the ambiguity of her feelings,” noted Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver, at a recent gathering of journalists at the Pew Forum on... Read more
It was clear from the man’s testimony that all hell was breaking loose in his life and he needed help. However, since this man was a scientist, Father Gary Thomas wasn’t surprised that he was a skeptic when it came to supernatural evil. That was fine, since one of the first things the priest learned in Rome while training to be an exorcist was to remain as skeptical as possible, as long as possible. Still, there were troubling facts in... Read more
Terry Mattingly
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