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All Catholic commentary from October 2009
time for personal renewal
Back in 2004, you may remember, the Springfield (MA) Diocese announced that Bishop Thomas Dupre, "citing health reasons," was opting for early retirement under the provisions of canon 401-dash-2. The word "health," it turned out, had a special ecclesiastical meaning. The...
Hollywood's moral compass
"Hollywood has the best moral compass, because it has compassion," Weinstein said. That pearl dropped from the lips of Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood impressario, speaking to the Los Angeles Times. Read it again. Let it sink in. The compassion to which Weinstein referred is...
The 'dash-2' deception
With the revelation that Bishop Raymond Lahey faces prosecution on child-pornography charges, we have one more sad entry on the list of "dash-2 bishops"-- those prelates who have stepped down ahead of the usual retirement date, citing #401-2 of the Code of Canon Law, which allows...
AP puts words in the Pope's mouth
The AP story, which will run in hundreds of American newspapers and on thousands of internet sites, carries this headline: Pope meets new US envoy, praises Obama Go ahead: Read the whole story. Do you see where the Pope praised Obama? Neither do I. Vatican Radio has provided the full text...
Family Size, Social Development, Selfishness and Love
My wife teaches English to seniors at Seton School in Manassas, Virginia, and all the seniors are required to write regularly in a journal so that, by sheer frequency, they become more comfortable with writing. Recently, one budding literary talent wrote humorously of the reactions she gets...
So does the Baucus plan offer abortion coverage?
President Obama has said that an acceptable health-care reform proposal should not require taxpayers to subsidize abortion. Agreed. The key question now is whether or not the proposal under discussion on Capitol Hill-- the Baucus plan-- actually does provide abortion coverage. Pro-life activists...
Remind me again: how does celibacy contribute to scandals?
If only the Catholic Church allowed priests to marry, we wouldn't have so many clerics caught up in sexual scandals. Right? That's the party line, certainly. But it doesn't quite explain the problems facing a retired Anglican bishop who was arrested this week in a crackdown on prostitutes....
how this White House protects school children
It was the spring of 1988. A 15-year-old boy came to a high-school teacher and hesitantly admitted that he was having a homosexual affair with an adult man. Did the teacher alert police to this case of sexual abuse? No. Did he tell the boy about the meaning of statutory rape,...
lahey the unmentionable
Canadian Bishop Raymond Lahey was arrested last week for possession of kiddie-porn, an event widely reported in the media. The public reaction was one of understandable disgust and exasperation. Halifax Archbishop Anthony Mancini has written an open letter to the Roman Catholic faithful of Nova...
an artist is a lovesome thing, god wot
The Polanski child-rape story provides a dislocating sense of déjà vu in the peculiarly haughty indignation with which the princes of the entertainment world have come to the defense of the perp. The dismissive reasons tendered for giving Polanski a pass will have a special...
From one blog, three
CatholicCulture.org has split "The Blog" into two different blogs. The first, "On the Culture" will be written primarily by Dr. Jeff Mirus. The second, "On the News" will be written primarily by Phil Lawler. We are also pleased to announce a new blog,...
Cardinal Turkson: one to watch
By appointing Cardinal Peter Turkson as relator general of the current African Synod, Pope Benedict guaranteed that the prelate from Ghana would command worldwide attention. Sure enough, Cardinal Turkson is making reporters in Rome take notice. And none more so than America's leading...
don't ask and especially don't tell
At least one enterprising Canadian journalist has finally asked the obvious question: Why did airport security officials search a bishop's laptop computer? The answer is even more disconcerting than you might have anticipated: It was his travel history including visits to southeast Asian...
Big guns in the spiritual warfare
If you've ever spent autumn in New England, you know about the "leaf peepers"-- the tourists who flock to Vermont to enjoy the foliage in early October. But early October-- and specifically this day: October 6, the feast of St. Bruno-- bring different memories of Vermont for me. Back in...
CatholicCulture.org redesigned: Why?
Unless you’re getting this in an RSS feed, I suppose the redesign of CatholicCulture.org is obvious. But perhaps the reasons for it are not. Yet if the redesign is successful, the reasons should become obvious as you explore our new web site. As you look around, consider the...
take an axe to it
Controversy sells newspapers. When one prominent Catholic prelate criticizes another-- however politely he goes about it-- you've got yourself a controversy. That's especially true in Italy, where Vatican-watching is a popular pastime. So when Archbishop Chaput took exception to the...
deja vu in the British press
Two different London newspapers carried stories this week about a Vatican official who was cruising slowly through Rome's red-light district, and when police tried to stop his car he set off on a high-speed chase, causing a crash that injured three police officers before he was finally...
know thyself (a painful process)
In order to engage your market, you must know yourself as your market knows you. In other words, you must see yourself through the eyes of your customer! This is the fundamental principle of marketing, but it is often ignored (or not fully executed) in marketing and business development...
The Gadgeteer
You’ve heard, I suspect, of a gazetteer, which is a geographical dictionary. And perhaps you’ve seen the Rocketeer, the high-flying 1991 Disney film hero based on a character created for Pacific Comics in the 1980’s. If you read Scripture, you also know about Pharoah's chariots...
I don't got rhythm
Warning: For immature audiences only You probably should not watch this video if you have a sensitive stomach. Send the children away; they might get nightmares. But if you're brave enough to watch, you'll notice something immediately about the priests shown making a spectacle of...
getting the outsider's perspective
Many small business owners, or organizational leaders working on a tight budget, wonder how they can economically get the "outsider's viewpoint" of their company without spending any money. Simply having the input of one intelligent outsider can make a big difference to maintaining...
people as assets
Both in this blog and on my corporate website, I have written and will continue to write a good deal about leveraging business assets to accomplish goals (both general and specific). In common "business speak" we talk about people as assets all the time. "The company's most...
OneCause and universal promotions: A problem?
A supporter of CatholicCulture.org sent a message today indicating he had received an email from OneCause promoting Dell’s offer to donate $5.00 to the Susan G. Komen Foundation for each pink laptop it sells. This was obviously designed as a non-controversial incentive for...
don't ask and especially don't tell, cont.
Fact: Bishop Raymond Lahey, who was hit last week with child-porn charges, had traveled-- a number of times, apparently-- to southeast Asia. Fact: Tourist sites in southeast Asia have a seamy reputation. They have become international centers for the sexual exploitation of...
Do I make myself perfectly obscure?
Ordinarily, when you want to "clarify" a statement, you add an explanatory note. But earlier this week, when 5 prominent American prelates released a "clarification" of an earlier statement on relations between Catholics and Jews, they made the change by removing two sentences...
Lahey the indomitable
When Bishop Raymond Lahey was arrested for possession of kiddie-porn after attracting the suspicion of Canadian Border Patrol agents, Terry Mattingly asked the apposite question, What was the trigger that led to the secondary search of the laptop hard drive of a Catholic bishop? Well, now we...
What about Bad Music?
It is a feature of human nature that all normal persons respond emotionally to music. For this reason, music is often described in emotional or quasi-emotional terms. It may be languorous or bombastic, martial or lyrical, peaceful or agitated, soothing or exciting, and so on. But in addition to...
nothing to see here, folks
Archbishop Edwin O'Brien knows a thing or two about apostolic visitations. He led the apostolic visitation of American seminaries that was ordered up by the Vatican at the height of the sex-abuse scandal. That investigation, you'll recall, concluded with an assurance that the seminaries were...
Bishops note 'deficiencies,' but CHA still pushes health-care reform
On September 30, the Senate finance committee voted down amendments that would have eliminated abortion subsidies from the health-care reform plan. The very next day, the Catholic Health Association (CHA) issued two statements. "Thank you, Mr. President," was the headline on the...
A Short Course in Music and Morals
Readers who liked my analysis What about Bad Music?, or even those who disagreed with it, owe it to themselves to read the book Music & Morals by Basil Cole, OP. Fr. Cole was a jazz musician before becoming a Dominican priest, and he did an extensive study of the relationship between music and...
Mailbag: Are Labor Unions Encouraged by the Catholic Church?
"How does a Catholic in business reconcile Caritas in Veritate (and earlier encyclicals) with widely accepted business theory and practices regarding labor. 'Union Free' environments are preached in business schools. As a member of SHRM [Society for Human Resource Management] I have many...
kidnapped!
Thank goodness, justice has triumphed again. Msgr. Cesare Burgazzi will not be serving a prison sentence. Msgr. Burgazzi, in case you've forgotten, is the Vatican official-- make that former Vatican official-- who was stopped by police as he cruised through a red-light district in Rome....
When junk mail isn’t junk: The Life Issues Institute
Recently I took note of some unsolicited mail, a copy of the October issue of Life Issues Connector from the Life Issues Institute in Cincinnati. The President and Publisher is the well-known pro-life physician, John Willke, so I decided to resist my first impulse and read the newsletter. Among...
suitable to the occasion
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons applies the following restrictions to persons visiting inmates incarcerated in federal detention facilities: Inappropriate/unauthorized attire is considered to be: transparent clothing; strapless garments; any garment which exposes the stomach or any intimate area of...
soft options
Chris Johnson brings our attention to some eco-gushing at the Anglican Communion web site: Our faith and our ancestors have always taught us that the earth is our mother and deserves respect; we know that this respect has not been given. We know that like a mother the earth will continue to give...
Catholics United for Partisan Politics
A group that calls itself Catholics United for the Common Good is heaping fulsome praise on Maine's Senator Olympia Snowe for her "courageous" finance-committee vote to approve the health-care reform bill. Let's assume, for the sake of the argument, that this legislation is desirable....
no other public institution
In conversation with John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter, Archbishop Wilton Gregory looks back on those halcyon days when he was president of the US bishops' conference, and that weighty body was coping so successfully with the sex-abuse scandal: I think that the bishops of the...
The habit of responsibility
It's easy to shirk responsibility. It can be habit-forming. More often than not there's a convenient excuse. Maybe someone else can do the job. Maybe nobody will notice if the job goes undone. Maybe things will turn out all right even if you do nothing. Shouldering the responsibility, on the...
feel the love
Do conservatives have a monopoly on hate? Progressivist Catholics often write as if we did. In part, the accusation of hatred is a labor-saving device (impugning your opponent's motives at the outset saves you the trouble of analyzing and answering his arguments). In part, the accusation of...
Belmont Abbey College: Preparing to Fight
Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina has been striving for the past few years to become a more thoroughly Catholic institution of higher education. The College has a long tradition which extends back to its founding in 1876 as St. Mary’s College by the Benedictine monks of Belmont Abbey....
free ride
Notre Dame's student newspaper The Observer reports that the university helped some students travel to Washington to demonstrate in favor of gay rights. A surprise move from the Student Activities Office allowed five students to attend a national gay rights demonstration in Washington D.C....
a word from our betters
James Taranto cites a 2007 address made in Berkeley by Clinton's Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. Reich gave the speech which he believed a Democratic presidential candidate should make, were he free to speak his mind on the matter of health care: "Thank you so much for coming this...
widen that chasm for you?
Chicago's ABC News affiliate ran a story on last Saturday's makeover of a local woman into a Catholic "priest." The reporters don't quite get the facts right, but they do convey the idea that the Vatican -- i.e., Catholic officialdom in some sense -- does not regard the ceremony as a...
quis custodiet, etc.
There's a dreary familiarity about the facts of the case, as reported in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. A priest was accused of molesting boys. A chancery bureaucrat investigated, uncovered evidence, but did not make that evidence public nor warn potential victims. Eventually there were...
As Africa goes . . .
Quite a bit has been written in the last few years about the rising importance of religion in the world, especially in the “global south”, and particularly in Africa. Those who are paying attention to world affairs with at least some attempt at objectivity recognize, for example, that the...
Personality Types and the "God Experience"
I am a big proponent of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), and recently provided a lecture to our junior staff on the history of the MBTI (including how it relates to the classic temperaments) and the merits of determining your personality type by this system. The MBTI results (and resulting...
author! author!
When you see a sentence like this, drawn from the Pope's message for World Food Day.... Guaranteeing individuals and peoples the chance to defeat the scourge of hunger means ensuring they have real access to adequate and healthy nourishment. ... you get the sense, right away, that the statement...
sweet home chicago
Today's Chicago Sun-Times features an investigative exposé detailing the contents of a digital "hiring database" belonging to former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, currently under federal indictment for racketeering, extortion, and fraud. "The Blagojevich hiring...
CWN correspondent publishes book on India's 21st-century martyrs
Longtime CWN correspondent Anto Akkara has released a new book on the valiant loyalty of Christians under persecution in India's Kandhamal region. His work, Shining Faith in Kandhamal, was introduced to the press in Mumbai on October 15, at a news conference chaired by Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil,...
full compliance
The Diocese of Rockville Center, New York, proudly announces that it is fully in compliance with the guidelines of the Dallas Charter. Newsday explains this achievement: Last year an audit found that, while the diocese passed virtually every aspect of the 13-article audit, it failed in one part...
the smartest guys in the class
Times are tough for all of us. But your Uncle Di didn't lose $500 million gambling on interest-rates last year. Did you? No? Guess we're not smart...
Make the Most Out of Your Weakness
Corporate introspection is a good thing. The acknowledgement that we all have weaknesses is a good thing. Using the "we all have weaknesses" card to excuse poor behavior/performance is a bad thing both in our personal lives, our businesses, and our society. It is admirable to...
This one is for the sufferers
In my experience in both the non-profit and for-profit sectors, I have encountered people in all types of businesses and in all levels of authority that suffer for various reasons. Perhaps that suffering comes from a bad economy, an unreasonable boss, difficult coworker(s), lack of commitment in...
antigonish agonistes
Canadian bishop Raymond Lahey is currently awaiting trial, charged with possessing and importing child pornography. The disgrace of Lahey's misdeeds has been amplified by the embarrassingly infantile moral cowardice he has displayed at every stage of the business: he even lies...
can you spare a paradigm?
Indian Theologian Calls for New Women Religious Paradigm! squealed the NCR headline. We're all thrilled beyond measure by original paradigms, it goes without saying, and impatient Uncle Di almost crippled his left mouse button clicking on the link. Here's the lede: Samphran, Thailand. Speaking...
The bishops and their(?) lobbyists
Writing in Time magazine, Amy Sullivan asks: "Will the Church Try to Block Health Reform?" The question is ironic, in light of the energy spent by Catholic officials-- especially at the US Conference for Catholic Bishops-- to promote the health-care reform package. Now it seems...
Earning your trust
All it took was a front-page article in the New York Times, and the Diocese of Superior, Wisconsin, took action, suspending a priest who fathered a son during one of an indeterminate number...
making people squirm
Saturday's announcement that the Pope has appointed two new members to the Congregation for Bishops is worth unpacking. The two new members are Cardinal Antonio Canizares Llovera, the Spanish prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship; and Archbishop Raymond Burke, the American head of the...
Putting the Liturgy in Perspective
Reading a fine article by Msgr. George P. Graham in the October issue of Homiletic & Pastoral Review put me in mind once again of the key to understanding the Mass and how the Liturgy should be absorbed and evaluated. The Liturgy is the public worship not primarily of a...
big news coming tomorrow??
This could be big news. Or else it could be very very big news. Father Z rightly calls attention to a short notice in the Bolletino, alerting journalists to a press briefing that will take place on Tuesday, October 20, at 11. The participants will be Cardinal William Levada, the prefect of the...
Applauding a failed priest
I’m here to interpret the not-so-strange case of Fr. Henry Willenborg of the Diocese of Superior, Wisconsin, whose parishioners applauded him when he explained his suspension from the priesthood resulting from various affairs he had had with women, in one of which he fathered a...
anglicans incoming!
The Holy See took the ecumenical imperative out of the hands of ecumenists, with the result that the reunion of Christians -- at least in one limited area of schism -- ensued. From the Vatican website: With the preparation of an Apostolic Constitution, the Catholic Church is responding to the...
The Pope's bold invitation to Anglicans
With a single, bold stroke that caught nearly everyone by surprise, Pope Benedict XVI has eased the way for tradition-minded Anglicans who wish to enter the Catholic Church. [See the CWN headline story.] The apostolic constitution that was announced at the Vatican today will create a...
the money trail
If a judge gave me a choice between paying $432,000 and going to jail, he really wouldn't be giving me any choice at all. I don't have $432,000; I'd go to jail. Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking: "If you'd just been charged with stealing $432,000, and you offered a...
these troublesome (Anglican) priests
With furrowed brow, Jeff Israely of Time magazine ponders the implications of the latest Vatican move: For Anglican leaders, the Vatican announcement is the latest minefield to manage in their ongoing effort to avoid a full-fledged schism within their 80-million-strong church, which...
a clash of cult and culture in Northern Ireland
In Northern Ireland, a Protestant cabinet minister has made some waves with his announcement that his conscience will not allow him to attend ceremonies in a Catholic church. His stand was assailed by Sinn Fein, the political party identified with Catholics (and in the past, with supporters...
Church on the Prowl: The Lion Tamer’s Lament
I’m telling you, things are getting a little wild. First the Vatican observer at the UN offices in Geneva answered criticisms on the sex abuse scandal by telling everyone that the real abuse behind the scandal is homosexuality, and by telling other organizations to do as much to get their...
Realistic expectations about Anglicans
There's a natural, healthy excitement in Church this week, caused by the Pope's bold move to welcome Anglicans into the Catholic fold. But after that first flush of excitement, let's step back just a bit and assess the likely outcome. Will there be millions of Anglicans battering down the...
hate speech, Rush, and the USCCB
Liberal activists in the US loathe conservative talk-radio shows. OK, you already knew that. Liberals would like to use the power of the Federal Communications Commission to tighten down the lid on conservative talk-show hosts. OK, you already knew that. Liberal religious groups have asked the...
Business with a handshake
I once had a prospective client in which I had invested some time, and for which my company was assembling the scope for a project. Near the end of the scope discussions with the prospect, I said, "Great! We'll put together a Statement of Work for you. If you like what you see, just...
down syndrome children, and us
Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput has written an essay on children with Down syndrome -- and on our responsibilities towards them -- with some real wallop. An excerpt (from the First Things site): Every child with Down syndrome, every adult with special needs -- in fact, every unwanted unborn...
the Anglicans and the Eastern churches
Secular journalists, hearing the news about the Pope's dramatic invitation to Anglicans, immediately fastened on the question of celibacy. If married Anglican priests can be admitted to the Catholic priesthood, will the issue of priestly celibacy in the Roman Church be re-opened for...
I shall send you the Paraclete, who will lead you into constructive disagreements
In gauging the reactions to the Holy See's announcement of a Personal Ordinariate for Anglican converts, it's clear that, as is almost invariable in contemporary controversies, the rift in opinion reflects not church affiliation but one's alignment in the culture wars. The response of U.S....
Bankers on the Move
A group of London bankers has been caught studying Benedict’s social encyclical Caritas in Veritate. I know this because Zenit has dutifully reported the Pope’s pleasure and the message of encouragement sent by the Pope’s Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. The study...
gone fishin'
The BBC explains why so many people were caught off guard by this week's news from Rome: Only last week the Vatican's senior spokesman on relations with other churches, Cardinal Walter Kasper, said "full visible unity" with Anglicans was Rome's long-term goal. "We are not fishing...
[T]radition and [t]radition
Yes, I know you’re tired of hearing about it, but one of our most faithful supporters, and a man whose opinion I deeply respect, has posted two highly critical comments in Sound Off in response to my In Depth Analysis from September 23rd, On Waffling, Tradition, and the Magisterium. Both...
The Jewel of Celibacy
Phil Lawler is undoubtedly correct that the rule of celibacy will not be relaxed for Catholics of the Roman Rite when married Anglican priests begin to appear under a new Catholic ordinariate. He may also be correct that Eastern Rite churches will gradually permit more of their married clergy to...
ecumenism lives on
Don't listen to those people who say that by spreading the welcome mat for Anglicans, the Vatican has ended an era in ecumenism: an era marked by pleasant conversations which produce agreements on dates for future pleasant conversations, with an eye to continuing pleasant conversations unto...
Editorial misfire
An editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer complains that by filing for bankruptcy, the Diocese of Wilmington, Delaware has stalled the progress of sex-abuse lawsuits against the Church. The paper argues that the diocese should have allowed the suits to continue, thereby bringing out all the...
death wish
LifeSite News reports that Dominican Sister Donna Quinn serves as a Chicago-area abortion clinic "escort," that is, she guides women seeking abortions into the clinic doors while providing a bit of reassurance to silence any last-minute hesitations induced by pro-life activists in the...
"friending" your way to the top
One of the best ways to advance your sphere of influence in the business world is to invest in relationships. Word of mouth drives a significant portion of growth for many companies in many industries. A popular vehicle for doing this, particularly for the small business crowd, is BNI -- the...
wet hankies in tomorrowland
The Pope's Apostolic Constitution erecting the Personal Ordinariate for Anglican converts has not been released, yet there's no question but that it's got the right people pouting. Across the board, among Catholics, Anglicans, and neutral spectators, hostility varies inversely with...
African Catholicism comes of age: the Synod message
That Africa is a deeply troubled continent, few would deny; the evidence of poverty, disease, bloodshed, and repression is all too evident in all too many places. Rather than simply lamenting the suffering of Africa’s peoples, the Synod of Bishops for Africa-- which concluded its discussions this...
the remedial education of Congressman Kennedy
Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence, Rhode Island-- who shows a rare gift for plain
the enemy of my enemy is my friend
Go Phillies! . ....
Now just a damn Yankee minute . . .
No doubt you’ve noticed Phil Lawler’s absurd On the News entry, consisting of a cheer for the Philadelphia Phillies. This has nothing to do with his name. Phil lives in Red Sox land. I had a pastor once who introduced himself at his first Mass in our parish as being “from Boston,...
Pope picking up steam?
In April 2005, when Pope Benedict was elected to the Chair of Peter, many of his friends hoped (and his enemies feared) that he would use his new power, quickly and dramatically, to set a new course in Vatican affairs. They were wrong. Although he was known as a man with strong opinions and a...
music for working, part 2
In my last music for working post, I featured three albums of the liturgical/classical genre. This time, I'm going to write a little bit about jazz and feature three very different albums. I have listened a good deal to all three of them while working through the years. Like old friends, they...
what's the matter with kids today?
While you slept, your children consumed enough oxygen to fuel three dozen gerbils for six weeks at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Aren't you ashamed? What follows from the U.K. Guardian is not, regrettably, a parody: The worst thing that you or I can do for the planet is to have...
hate speech, Rush, and the USCCB: clarification
So it turns out that the US bishops' conference is not, after all, a part of the coalition that sent a petition to the FCC urging an investigation of "hate speech" by conservative radio talk-show hosts. Or to be more accurate, the USCCB is part of the So We Might See coalition,...
unproclaimable
Leading the charge against approval of the latest English-language liturgical texts, Bishop Donald Trautman of Erie, Pennsylvania, worries that "ordinary Catholics" will be unable to understand words like "incarnate" and "precursor" and "inviolate" and...
the USCCB on health reform: 'mixed results'
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has announced that it saw "mixed results" in a series of Senate finance committee votes on health-care reform. The votes everyone was watching involved funding for abortion. On that issue, the pro-life amendments were defeated. Richard Doerflinger,...
dawkins showing the strain
Professional atheist Richard Dawkins is told about the Personal Ordinariate for Anglican converts and blows a gasket: What major institution most deserves the title of greatest force for evil in the world? In a field of stiff competition, the Roman Catholic Church is surely up there among the...
let's (not) shake on it
Diocese altering rituals in swine flu precaution That's the top headline in today's Boston Globe. So it must be a big story. The lede certainly confirms that impression: The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, reacting to the...
too good to be true?
After the Pope, the Secretary of State, and the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the most influential man at the Vatican-- #4 on the overall list-- is the prefect of the Congregation for Bishops. That congregation supervises the selection of bishops for dioceses all...
another episcopal fumble on health care reform
If you read the statement carefully, you'll see that the Louisiana bishops called for a health-care reform package that respects the right to life. But most people don't read statements from the bishops carefully. Most people read about the statements, in newspaper stories with headlines like this...
God’s Partner: Obama and our prevailing prejudices
First Things editor Joseph Bottum has offered a telling critique of President Obama’s effort to enlist the aid of religious leaders for his health care reform. In the October 2009 issue (“The Day for the Religious”), Bottum describes Obama’s conference call with 1,000...
are you scared?
Hans Küng has criticized Pope Benedict. In other news, the sun rose in the east this morning. Writing in the Italian daily La Repubblica, Küng said that the Pope's invitation to Anglicans was tantamount to "unecumenical piracy of priests," and worried that Pope...
prayer, yes; faith, no
Rejecting protests, the city council of Darwin, Australia has decided to continue the practice of reciting the Lord's Prayer at meetings. Showing the wisdom of Solomon, the council members reason that non-Christians should not object to the prayer, since its inclusion at the meetings is a matter...
Anglicans and celibacy: the sticking point
To the surprise of no one, priestly celibacy is emerging as the most contentious issue to resolve in connection with the Pope's invitation to Anglicans. Italian journalists report that it was questions about celibacy that delayed the release of the Pope's apostolic exhortation. The question...
if you don't read this, humanity could become extinct
Pope Benedict's willingness to welcome Anglicans into the Catholic Church is "a rejection of contemporary human experience." That is the magisterial judgment of James Carroll, the former Paulist priest who, having abandoned the order of Melchizedek, has taken up the Great Commission of...
Statistics and Value Propositions for the Catholic in Business
As a Catholic In Business (CIB), you have to look at statistics very carefully to make sure that you don't create lies or spread "third-party manufactured lies" to others. In marketing, statistics are sliced, diced, julienned, cooked, garnished and served to present appealing-looking...
Recruit for the Right Stuff
I have spent the last five years trying to convince some clients, in ways both direct and indirect, that they are going about staff recruitment backwards. Companies should never hire people who do not possess qualities that the company does not plan on teaching to them. If a company...
Good Questions, Great Answers
Suppose you were to make a list of the most important questions which haunt the intersection between the Catholic Faith and modern culture. What would your list include? Where would you look for answers? No, this time I am not talking about CatholicCulture.org. But I do think this is a worthwhile...
the party of healing
Amherst Professor of Jurisprudence Hadley Arkes remarks on the unexpected stubbornness of that almost-extinct species, the pro-life Democratic congressman, and the unexpected consequence that "health care" may find itself directed at health: What the media have not understood is that...
Ratzinger's Faith
I've just finished reading Tracey Rowland's Ratzinger's Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI. Rowland is Dean and Associate Professor of Political Philosophy and Continental Theology at the John Paul II Institute in Melbourne, Australia. She is also on the editorial board of Communio, the...
a new campaign to reform the CCHD
A coalition of Catholic and pro-life groups-- including Human Life International, the American Life League, and the new Bellarmine Veritas Ministry-- has joined in a call for the American bishops to reform the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD). The Bellarmine Veritas Ministry burst...
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