H/T: Amy Welborn It took place yesterday in Dora quarter; in a convent of the Chaldean sisters ofthe Sacred Heart. Local sources tell AsiaNews that Shiite groups are suspected,as they mimic the fierce Sunni campaign of persecution against Christians in thecapital. Today the first session of the Chaldean Church Synod opens in al Qosh.(more…) Read more
Worried that we may soon have to pay $4/gal? Well, if we do end up paying that much, it seems that we would only be in the middle of the pack when we start looking at global gas prices: Source: CNN Money Netherlands, Amsterdam……………………… $6.48 Norway, Oslo………………………………………… $6.27Italy, Milan…………………………………………… $5.96Denmark, Copenhagen…………………………. $5.93Belgium, Brussels…………………………………. $5.91Sweden, Stockholm………………………………. $5.80United, Kingdom London………………………. $5.79Germany, Frankfurt……………………………… $5.57France, Paris………………………………………… $5.54Portugal, Lisbon……………………………………. $5.35Hungary, Budapest………………………………. $4.94Luxembourg…………………………………………. $4.82Croatia, Zagreb…………………………………….. $4.81Ireland, Dublin…………………………………….. $4.78Switzerland, Geneva……………………………. $4.74Spain, Madrid………………………………………. $4.55Japan, Tokyo………………………………………. $4.24Czech Republic, Prague………………………..... Read more
The UN security council voted to establish an international criminal tribunal to prosecute the murderers of Rafik Hariri. This is momentous. For a start, it is a first for the Middle East. More significantly, it is well known that complicity in Hariri’s murder extends to the very top of the Syrian regime. As the murdered prime minister’s son Saad Hariri (leader of the Sunni-Christian-Druze political alliance) noted: “We’re asking for justice, not for revenge.” For all its faults, the UN... Read more
Thanks to Zenit, we can read more of the Pope’s reflections on non-violence; this time it is found in his catechetical series of lectures based upon the early Church Fathers. Hopefully these lectures will be collected and published together in a their own volume; if done right, it could bring people back to studying patristics for the sake of theology and a much needed renewal in the field of Patrology. Benedict reminds us how the early Christians dealt with the... Read more
Source: NPR Nice. In President Bush’s words: Bringing progress and prosperity to struggling nations requires growing amounts of energy. It’s hard to grow your economy if you don’t have energy. Yet, producing that energy can create environmental challenges for the world. We need to harness the power of technology to help nations meet their growing energy needs while protecting the environment and addressing the challenge of global climate change. In recent years, science has deepened our understanding of climate change... Read more
Source: International Herald Tribune WASHINGTON: President George W. Bush has called on Congress to spend $30 million to fight global AIDS over the next five years, a near-doubling of financing that is part of a White House effort to burnish Bush’s humanitarian credentials before he meets leaders of the Group of 8 industrialized nations next week. European critics claim that it was time the U.S. would step up to the plate. For some time, the U.S. had been giving a... Read more
In discussions over the minimum wage often high schoolers will be offered as a rebuttal. In this post, I’m not going to argue what our laws should be in regards to minimum wages. Instead, I’m going to focus on the philosophical foundations. For most people, there is no difficulty in saying that the kid who mows your lawn shouldn’t be entitled to $14/hour. This is extended to the kid in high school working a summer job, and it is finally... Read more
It seems that Vox Nova is being attacked for adopting pacifist positions and not giving enough consideration to traditional just war teaching. Christopher Blosser writes: “An absolute (pacifist) condemnation of the military cannot be reconciled with Catholic tradition or the Catechism”. Nonsense. In fact, the pacifist tradition is well established and respected within the Catholic tradition. If pacifism is incompatible with Catholicism, then Dorothy Day would not be on the road to sainthood. If a rejection of all war is... Read more
How much reading of newspapers, how much reliance upon the news media, is too much for our own good? Possibly even a little is too much. Walter Hooper, C. S. Lewis’ private secretary and literary executor, describes the kind of disdain Lewis had with newspapers: ‘Who is Elizabeth Taylor?’ asked C. S. Lewis. He and I were talking about the difference between ‘prettiness’ and ‘beauty,’ and I suggested that Miss Taylor was a great beauty. ‘If you read the newspapers,’... Read more
I didn’t have too eventful of a Memorial Day. I attended a wedding. I also went to the graduation of a cousin who will be headed to Missouri for AIT before starting college. Vox Nova was a little more eventful. The reason I label the post such is because Nationalism and the rights of States are quite often understood erroneously outside patria. The Compendium of Social Doctrine is instructive here, “417. The political community is established to be of service... Read more
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