A story from Tennessee.

Patrick Madrid quotes Archbishop Fulton Sheen: The world is rapidly being divided into two camps, the comradeship of anti-Christ and the brotherhood of Christ. The lines between these two are being drawn. How long the battle will be, we know not. Whether swords will have to be unsheathed, we know not. Whether blood will have…

Paul McCain, The Demolition of Authentic, Biblical Lutheranism.

California Catholic Daily says Hillary Clinton is confused about “Our Lady of Guadalupe.” It seems she asked who painted the image. This isn’t “confusion”–it simply reflects, first of all, the fact that Protestants don’t accept the uniquely Catholic idea that Mary has a special role that includes  going around appearing to people asking them to…

From the New York Daily News: The manager of one of the city’s most luxurious hotels was given the boot after ordering a Catholic employee to clean up his forehead on Ash Wednesday. “Wipe that f—–g s–t off your face,” managing director Niklaus Leuenberger told a bell captain at the New York Palace Hotel on…

An answer.

Mark Kellner writes in the Adventist Review of the Montana plane crash. Pro-life activist Gingi Edmonds writes about Bud Feldkamp, the dentist whose family was killed. I think his “investments” shocking and scandalous–but I find the article itself a tragedy, as well. Update: Alex Carpenter writes to say, “Bill, you seem to intimate that this…

We went tonight for the opening performance of the Theater Under the Stars production of “Les Misérables.” This was their own production, not a road show, which means it didn’t have the revolving stage. But it did have a number of cast members who have played their roles on Broadway, including Ed Dixon from the…

Tim Chester at Resurgence.

Archbishop Charlie Chaput of Denver had some blunt words recently about Catholic political influence–or lack thereof. “We need to stop over-counting our numbers, our influence, our institutions and our resources, because they’re not real. We can’t talk about following St. Paul and converting our culture until we sober up and get honest about what we’ve…

A progressive webpage has a political quiz. My score: 159/400. That makes me “conservative”–off the chart conservative.

The First Amendment is meaningless in Oakland, it appears. Ironic, isn’t? The liberals who made such a fuss about their own free speech a generation ago have denied it to others now that they’ve assumed power. In this case, the man sent to jail for 30 days simply stood in silent witness.

Some links: His Confession. GetReligion on current bizarre trends and media coverage. David Gibson. Mark Driscoll.

For centuries, Lough Derg was the embodiment of authentic “Celtic spirituality”: fasting, penitence, and simple faith. The current proprietors, however, seem determined to transform it into a shrine of the pop “Celtic spirituality” in vogue today–neo-pagan pantheistic New Age mush. They’ve put in a labyrinth. They call the traditional prayers “mantra-like.” They say the pilgrimage…

From Paul McCain.

I never dreamed there were so many possibilities.

Get Religion points out a Washington Post story.

Jim Herrington comments on Michael Spencer’s recent article.

Judging by Bill Clinton’s recent comments, scientists should be less concerned with how evolution is taught in public schools and more concerned with how basic biology is taught.

Pope Benedict XVI has written a letter to Catholic bishops on the SSPX matter.

William Donohue and Catholic bloggers are denouncing a bill before the Connecticut legislature as “anti-Catholic bigotry.” It isn’t. Those pushing for it are active Catholics who are outraged that a priest, single-handedly, was able to abscond with $1.4 million. MSNBC has the details. McDonald told the Connecticut Post that the immediate push behind the bill…

Michael Paulson of the Boston Globe reports on the rapid decline of Catholicism in New England–and of religion in general. Northern New England is now less religious than the Pacific Northwest – long the nation’s least religious region – the study found.

The Vatican defends the excommunication of a mom and doctors who helped her 9 year old daughter get an abortion after the girl was raped–while dismissing complaints that the rapist (her stepfather) was not punished. Oh, raping your 9 year old step child may be “deplorable,” but it isn’t so bad as to merit excommunication.…

I wouldn’t call it an “anti-Catholic bill” as Jeff Miller does (after all, the majority of legislators in CT are probably Catholic), but a proposed bill before the Connecticut legislature constitutes a blantant violation of the First Amendment. Here’s the text. It singles out Catholic churches and proposes to require them to structure themselves in…

The Vatican has been hosting a conference this week celebrating Darwinian evolution. The conference specifically excluded any mention of Creationism or Intelligent Design, as I’ve already noted. But here’s the shocker–the abstracts show that some of the invited guests promised to engage in mockery of God. Francisco J. Ayala, for instance, says in his abstract:…

The Vatican’s conference on evolution is being funded by the Templeton Foundation; some see this as the reason they excluded creationists and those evolutionists who accept the philosophical argument of design. Templeton says no, that the speakers were lined up before they came in. Organizers of the five-day conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University said…

A strange story.

Business Week on unhappy cities.

On February 1, 2009, I linked to Ron Corson’s review of Theresa and Arthur Beem’s book, It’s Okay NOT to Be a Seventh-day Adventist. Teresa commented on February 21 that she thought Corson was unfair, and offered to send me a copy. I received it today. Let me first summarize Ron’s main points of criticism,…