This was the coup de grace for a while of those that wanted to argue about the political choices we made in Africa. Anyone who opposed giving further food aid or other assistance to African governments was met with this rejoinder. The rejoinder was offered so often that it became a parody of itself. We are now at the point when someone offers this rejoinder, we assume they are doing so sarcastically, because it is pretty well understood that for... Read more
The Irish economy is in a mess. Real GDP has fallen by about 10 percent. The deficit is over 30 percent of GDP, of which 20 percent is the cost of bailing out banks. The housing market has collapsed. The banks are teetering on the brink, sucking up seemingly infinite amounts of taxpayer resources. How did this happen? Up until the crisis, Ireland was lauded as the celtic tiger, the envy of the world. It adopted policies that seemed more... Read more
On June 24, 2002, I arrived in Milwaukee on the day before the public announcement that I had been appointed as tenth archbishop of Milwaukee. I was a nervous wreck. I had a big job ahead of me, in an archdiocese I knew little about, in the midst of a time of national scandal, to follow a very prominent and long-serving Archbishop. But what made me most apprehensive with the prospect of meeting my predecessor. Archbishop Rembert Weakland had a... Read more
Martin Wolf is probably the most respected columnist with the Financial Times, which is the newspaper of choice for economists and policy people all over the world. Unlike the Wall Street Journal, it is lodged firmly in the reality-based community. Here is Wolf on Obama’s dilemma: “An ambulance stops by the roadside to help a man suffering from a heart attack. After desperate measures, the patient survives. Brought into hospital, he then makes a protracted and partial recovery. Then, two years... Read more
I will provide seven reasons why a Republican Congress is a very bad idea. I will stick to the salient issues today where the composition of Congress can have a real impact. I will ignore a large number of important areas that will not be affected by the mid-term elections – including abortion, war, the death penalty, and gun control. Here we go: (more…) Read more
I believe the first 21 months of Democratic control of the Executive and Legislative branches of the federal government has been a missed opportunity, and an enormous one. When Obama and the new congress took office, they had a country which was staring terrified into the abyss, angry at the oligarchs who created that abyss, and ready to be led in a new direction by the soaring rhetoric of Hope from their new president. The Reagan/Gingrich-Era conservative revolution was about... Read more
Eternal memory. Eternal memory. Grant to your servant, O Lord, blessed repose and eternal memory. August 17, 1943 – October 25, 2010. He will be missed, not only by his family, but by many others in Indiana. Read more
Part I. Part II. Part III. Part IV. Freedom is given to created being, Allowing it to reveal what it has been given. The link which ties all together can be seen, By those who pause for contemplation. Sophia from Sophia produces Sophia. The higher and lower are properly mixed. Creation’s priest is found in the economia, Upon whom all eyes are transfixed. Created Sophia is made in the likeness of Uncreated Sophia. St. Augustine, in his attempt to understand the... Read more
This chart shows vulnerability to the effects of climate change: (more…) Read more
What we have to understand first of all, is that the problem under discussion is complicated by something our well-intentioned “conservatives” do not comprehend, in spite of all their denouncing and condemning of secularism. It is the fact of the very real connection between secularism—its origin and its development—and Christianity. Secularism—we must again and again stress this—is a “stepchild” of Christianity, as are, in the last analysis, all secular ideologies which today dominate the world—not, as is claimed by the... Read more
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