I am a third of the way through Deal Hudson’s new book, Onward Christian Soldiers: The Growing Political Power of Catholics and Evangelicals in the United States. I started reading the book with high expectations, and I continue to be impressed with how Hudson portrays the inception of the “Religious Right” in the United States, especially in terms of its Evangelical roots. As a Catholic, Hudson is also intent on describing the role Catholicism in the U.S. has played in... Read more
The impeccable Urban Institute has undertaken a detailed analysis of the tax policy proposals puts forth by the two candidates. The bottom line is clear: McCain’s tax cuts would primarily benefit those with very high incomes, raising their after-tax income by more than twice the average of all households. In contrast, Obama’s tax cuts are geared to the lower and middle-income groups, and taxes increase on the richest. In sum, Obama’s plan is progressive in the sense that it lowers taxes... Read more
Previous in Series: Race and History A couple of posts back, I said that it was problematic to define racism in terms of holding certain factual beliefs, because we typically don’t consider it particularly wicked to hold a mistaken factual belief. There is, however, a pretty glaring counter-example to this claim, namely Holocaust denial. Whether or not the Holocaust happened is a factual question, yet we don’t regard someone who denies the reality of the Holocaust as being merely mistaken,... Read more
Even apart from the liturgy, church life in the East has never become an exclusively clerical preserve. Lay theologians and preachers, permanent deacons and subdeacons, lay representation in the government of the Church are all common. And the Eastern clergyman, generally married, does not belong to a social class above his flock. Go into any Greek village in the cool of a summer evening, and you will find the local papas having an ouzo with the men of his flock,... Read more
H/T: Food Fight in the Cafeteria The Archbishop of Baltimore sent a letter to the superior general of the Legionaries of Christ asking for a liaison Legionary priest that would keep him informed of the order’s and Regnum Christi’s activities within his Archdiocese. More specifically, the archbishop asks for the names and locations where Legionary priests minister, the identification of all Regnum Christi groups as well as their “activities, meeting location and schedules, membership rolls and methodologies for gaining new... Read more
There’s a lot of hot air circulating on this topic. In fact, I’ve probably contributed to it! But I wanted to write a short post explaining my prudential judgment as it relates to the choice of Obama over McCain. (more…) Read more
Writing at Townhall, Jennifer Roback Morse addresses the advocates of the so-called conservative case for same sex marriage: Well, it is official. You won. We lost. Same sex marriage is the law in California. We might win the amendment in the fall, but let’s face it. The momentum is on your side: the Inexorable March of Progress and all that. Those of us in the Marriage Movement can go back to our main business of trying to make marriage more... Read more
In this interesting article, there is the discussion of how masses are being outsourced to India because the number of priests able to say mass in the United States cannot keep up with the requests being made. While it is good that these masses are indeed being said, I wonder if there is another aspect to the story which has not been told yet: capitalism. In today’s consumeristic society, is it wise to “outsource” masses like this? Does it not make the... Read more
Verizon, Sprint, and Time Warner Cable have agreed to block access to child pornography nationwide. NPR has the story. Read more
Bill Donohue, the partisan Republican who heads the so-called Catholic League is going for a repeat of 2004, when he extolled the virtues of George Bush and the phoniness and depravity of John Kerry. See here for the gory details. Now, I have no problem with somebody making these arguments, with Catholics making these arguments. But I have major issues with a person who heads something called the Catholic League taking a partisan stance. (more…) Read more
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