My girlfriend sent this story to me that she heard on NPR. Evidently Alabama’s decade’s old law against marrying people who don’t have a social security card is now being enforced. This places the Catholic Church in a bind because according to Canon Law people have the right to access the Sacraments. Listen here. Read more
This is rather exciting! Helen Alvaré, Associate Professor of Law at the Catholic University of America and stalwart pro-life activist, has been named to the Pontifical Council for the Laity by Pope Benedict XVI. She will serve as a consultor to the Council, and she is the only new appointment from the United States. CNA has a write-up on all the new additions. Also see CUA’s press release on Alvaré’s appointment. Alvaré describes herself as a pro-life feminist and as... Read more
Via First Things, Maggie Gallagher points to some strikingly counter-intuitive statements by the Pope on the relationship between marriage and peace. Here, for example, is a snippet from the Holy Father’s remarks at this year’s World Day of Peace: Consequently, whoever, even unknowingly, circumvents the institution of the family undermines peace in the entire community, national and international, since he weakens what is in effect the primary agency of peace. This point merits special reflection: everything that serves to weaken... Read more
So the tongue is a little member and boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is an unrighteous world among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the cycle of nature, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by humankind, but no human being... Read more
As a follow-up to my Expelled review, I’ve long noticed that critics of evolution often talk about evolution being a “religion”, supported by “faith” rather than reason, supported by a scientific “orthodoxy” that considers any questioning of evolutionary “dogma” to be “heresy”, and so forth. I find this rhetorical tactic a bit odd. Based on such statements, you would get the idea that the average critic of evolution thinks of religion as an insult, of faith as something bad, of... Read more
Mad skillz. Maybe not. Read more
I admit it, I have a weakness inane comedies, including ones that can be a tad crude. My all-time favorites, of course, hail from the other side of the “big blue wobbly thing”– Blackadder, Fawlty Towers, Ali G, and Father Ted (the latter should be compulsory viewing for Catholics). On the American side of things, I’ve always loved Mike Myers and something about Will Ferrell just cracks me up. I also loved the first Harold and Kumar movie– Harold and Kumar Go... Read more
George Weigel has a new book out, published by Crossroad, entitled Against the Grain: Christnaity and Democracy, War and Peace. It looks rather interesting, as most Weigel books are. I am currently working through his Faith, Reason and the War on Jihadism, which is a provocative and thoughtful read, though a bit ideological and programmatic (but then again, the subtitle is: A Call to Action). Despite what I interpret to be a bit of theological confusion, I have always found... Read more
In reading Blackadder’s post on torture, I noticed that “The War on Terror is not only a battle of bombs and bullets, it is a battle of ideas”. It must be serious– it is capitalized! But the premise of this whole argument is fallacious– for phrase “war on terror” is utterly devoid of meaning. Indeed, it is one of the most cynical, most vacuous, most Orwellian phrases dreamed up by the Bush administration. What does it mean? How can you... Read more
Yesterday’s post on the subject hardly exhausted all the practical reasons against using torture on terror suspects (to cite but one omission, torturing a suspect will likely mean that he can never be brought to trial and forced to answer for what he has done). However, the post was, I think, sufficient to show that torture “does not work” and should not be used or condoned or winked at by the United States. Nevertheless, there is one other consideration which... Read more
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