Christina links to a small town newspaper op-ed which asserts, “Replacing public education with private schools would allow parents a choice.” Choice? Parents have a choice. They can choose to send their schools to taxpayer-funded public schools, or they can choose to send them to any of a number of private school options, secular and…
Americans United dissects a program being marketed to PBS stations which misrepresents American history.
We have the Baptists to thank for religious liberty in this country. Yesterday, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, representing fourteen Baptist denominations, held a Baptist Unity Rally for Religious Liberty at the U.S. Capitol. They remembered a 1920 address on that location by Baptist pastor George W. Truett, by having various public officials…
Orthodox priest, Fr. John Parker, writes at Touchstone about prayers in public settings that are expected to be “inclusive.” I’ve always had misgivings about praying in such settings. I have done them, and prayed “with sensitivity,” but I think the best approach for me is just to decline invitations if there is any expectation, spoken…
The Catholic Church has for centuries been seeking to influence the affairs of state in one way or another. It has excommunicated kings and emperors when they would not do its bidding (e.g., Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV, King of England Henry VIII). Cardinals like Wolsey and Richelieu were advisers to kings. In the 17th…
A liberal Catholic magazine, U.S. Catholic, published by the Claretian order, has an article saying the Catholic church needs to get with the times and approve of cohabitation. Michael G. Lawler and Gail S. Risch are both on the staff of the Center for Marriage and Family at Creighton University in Nebraska (“a university in…
Mark Shea has forgotten the basics of Evangelical faith, suggesting that the only options are 1) authoritative pope or 2) relativism. If you don’t have a magisterium, he argues, all you have is private judgment, and thus any discussion between, say, a Mormon and an Evangelical must be a toss-up (and for that, he says,…
Second post is up at Spectrum, by Johnny Ramirez-Johnson (a professor at Loma Linda, specializing in Relational Studies with an emphasis in Psychology & Culture), on the Trinity and human relationships. This is a diverse group of writers, and all kinds of folks from across the blogosphere are entering into the discussion–so don’t judge the…
Did you know that St. Thomas Aquinas taught that there are occasions when it is OK to steal? Consider this from the Summa (II-II, q. 66, a. 7): In cases of need all things are common property, so that there would seem to be no sin in taking another’s property, for need has made it…
It’s been ten years for Jim and Jessica Cork — and in another week, it will be ten years for Rob and Linda. They made it convenient for us all by having their weddings a week apart, one in Manchester, NH, the other in Essex, NY. Below is a picture of the six of us…
Zadok Romanus directs us to the official announcement on the Vatican webpage of the pope’s meeting yesterday discussing the upcoming publication of the Motu Proprio on the Tridentine mass. And now secular news services have picked up the scent: AP, New York Times. Last, but not least, Catholic News Service. For a refresher, see the…
Barry Black, Senate chaplain and retired Chief of Chaplains for the U.S. Navy, a Seventh-day Adventist pastor, is profiled by Religion & Ethics Newsweekly. Via Ryan Bell. (See also Johnny Ramirez).
John Henry Newman published his Apologia Pro Vita Sua in 1864, some twenty years after he became a Catholic, in response to an attack by Charles Kingsley. I’m not about to write a book, but some attacks do require response, such as that made recently by Dave Armstrong. Armstrong says statements that I have made…
Carl Olson cites Robert Moynihan. … It isn’t about the Latin. (And the Latin Mass is, in any case, not the Latin Mass at all; that is a misnomer; it is, rather, “the Latin, Greek and Aramaic Mass,” with “Kyrie eleison” in Greek and “Amen” and “Alleluia” in Aramaic.) And those who think Latin is…
“I murdered the life within me,” says the Reverend Donna Schaper. I happen to agree that abortion is a form of murder. I think the quarrel about when life begins is disrespectful to the fetus. I know I murdered the life within me. I could have loved that life but chose not to. I did…
Rod Dreher asks, Delta Airlines: Merely incompetent, or plain evil? He provides YouTube video taken by passenger on a flight stuck for seven hours on the ground at JFK. Family members who inquired were snapped at by employees who told them the plane had left hours ago. Compare with Dreher’s own experience on the same…
In a bizarre twist, the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales have decreed certain human/animal hybrids, “chimeras,” to be “human,” and declared that it should be legal to implant them in the wombs of mothers.
Homer Simpson.
Via Christina: Labor unions have experienced a court loss, and freedom has triumphed, to a degree, in Ohio. Carol Katter, a Catholic, didn’t want to give money to the pro-abortion NEA. She was told only Seventh-day Adventists and Mennonites could claim exemptions, because of their historic anti-union stance. Catholics, as members of a church that…
John Leo discusses Robert Putnam’s (Bowling Alone) latest research (via Rod Dreher). Putnam’s study reveals that immigration and diversity not only reduce social capital between ethnic groups, but also within the groups themselves. Trust, even for members of one’s own race, is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friendships fewer. The problem isn’t ethnic conflict…
Paul McCain (LCMS) links to a video featuring Fr. Stan Fortuna. My Catholic readers will love the video. Protestants will appreciate McCain’s question: “Is this what Christ intended we do with His Supper?” It’s a question rooted in Christ’s command: “Take and eat; this is my body. … Drink from it, all of you.” Lutherans…
It’s summer, and camp meeting season in the Adventist world. My wife and kids left this morning for three weeks in Vermont, which will include a detour to Freeport, Maine, for the Northern New England Conference camp meeting. It’s an old-fashioned affair, with folks staying in tents and meetings under the “big top.” (And there…
Pope Benedict XVI issued a motu proprio today–not on Latin, but on papal elections–and reversed an innovation introduced by Pope John Paul II.
You’d think a priest would be grateful for folks converting to Catholicism. Not Richard McBrien (whose attitudes I think are typical of liberal academics and curia staff). Carl Olson comments.
Monte Sahlin spoke about urban ministry at Hollywood SDA.
Quiz at Catholic World News.
Female Episcopalian priest claims to be 100% Christian and 100% Muslim–and she will be teaching New Testament at a Catholic university.
I’m reading Eddie Gibbs and Ryan K. Bolger, Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures (Baker 2005). Spencer Burke of Newport Beach, CA is quoted: On one occasion, our community was getting kicked out of a park because of our interaction with the homeless. “You can’t feed the homeless here; you need a permit,”…
60 Minutes profiled Joe Darby tonight, the MP who broke open the Abu Ghraib scandal when he turned in CDs with photos. He’s considered a hero by most of the world–but not to many vocal people in his hometown of Cumberland, MD. The Army was so afraid for him that they told him not to…
“There is nothing — absolutely nothing — half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats” (from Wind in the Willows). Bradenton Herald reporter paddles in a canoe with my dad.
Pax et bonum 
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