One of the most important elements of culture is cuisine, and Pope Benedict XVI has most certainly taken to Italian culture! According to AKI, the Pope has developed quite of liking for buffalo mozzarella cheese and eats it quite often: Vatican City, 28 March (AKI) – Pope Benedict XVI is a big fan of buffalo mozzarella cheese, and eats it often reported Italian daily Il Messaggero on Friday. (more…) Read more
If being pro-choice automatically makes one pro-abortion, does that mean God, making a world where abortion is a choice, is pro-abortion? (No, I am not pro-choice). Read more
The Be Good Tanyas video I posted yesterday was kind of a downer. So I thought I’d post another one that sounds a more hopeful note. While the amount of suffering in the world is enormous, we can’t let our awareness of that fact rob us of our ability to experience happiness and joy. (Then) Cardinal Ratzinger addressed this issue in his book length interview Salt of the Earth: (more…) Read more
The Historical Context If one were pressed to isolate a single trend within the contemporary Catholic theological milieu whose powerful impact and enduring presence has most affected Catholicism from the top of the episcopal hierarchy down to the anonymous layperson in the pew, one would most certainly conclude that the ressourcement movement of twentieth century Catholic theology would be the only viable and worthy candidate for isolation. What began as a loose trend among a few Catholic scholars in the... Read more
Islam has overtaken Roman Catholicism as the biggest single religious denomination in the world, the Vatican said on Sunday. Monsignor Vittorio Formenti, who compiled the Vatican’s newly-released 2008 yearbook of statistics, said Muslims made up 19.2 percent of the world’s population and Catholics 17.4 percent. “For the first time in history we are no longer at the top: the Muslims have overtaken us,” Formenti told Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano in an interview, saying the data referred to 2006. He said... Read more
Jesus, I trust in you – those are the words associated with Divine Mercy Sunday. We put our trust in the Jesus – and we receive the graces of the new creation, the graces of Christ which are as merciful as they are transformative. As Divine Mercy Sunday happens on the eighth day of the Paschal celebration, it echoes the fact that the joy of the resurrection is the joy of the new, everlasting week. We have gone beyond the... Read more
One of my favorite bands is the Be Good Tanyas, an alternative country band (with a touch of blue grass) from British Columbia. The band has a wonderful sound, mixing renditions of old standards (Oh! Susanna, Lakes of Pontchartrain) with their own compositions. The Junkie Song, off their album Chinatown, is about the often overwhelming degree of suffering and deprivation in the world, and the seeming hoplessness of our inability to even make a dent in the problem. The song... Read more
via Mirror of Justice and NPR Julio Diaz has a daily routine. Every night, the 31-year-old social worker ends his hour-long subway commute to the Bronx one stop early, just so he can eat at his favorite diner.But one night last month, as Diaz stepped off the No. 6 train and onto a nearly empty platform, his evening took an unexpected turn. He was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy approached and pulled out a knife. “He wants... Read more
“Protestantism, whether primitive or modern, Lutheran or Calvinist, orthodox or liberal, generally occurs as a religion of antitheses. Either rites or morals, authority or liberty, faith or works, nature or grace, prayer or sacrifice, bible or pope, Christ the savior or Christ the judge, sacraments or the religion of the spirit, mysticism or prophecy… but Catholicism does not accept these dichotomies and refuses to be merely Protestantism turned inside out. The splendid name of Catholic, that has been so fitting... Read more
It is being reported by a few news sources that Bishop Erin Kräutler of Brazil has had a bounty placed upon him by unknown sources because of he “supported the efforts of Indian tribes” (CWN) against “land grabbing, debt slavery and environmental destruction” (MSNBC). This is just the latest in a long line of threats he has received because of his work for social justice; indeed, he has been under police protection for the last year due to the seriousness of the threats. Read... Read more
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