In the days leading up to the papal conclave which just concluded, I became a bit dismayed by the intense, wall to wall media coverage of the event because of two of the forces driving this coverage. The first is our celebrity- and “reality”-obsessed media culture. Recent popes have certainly been treated like celebrities, if of an unusual sort, and I couldn’t Read more
In recent months, the Catholic activist Dorothy Day has received ample praise in both the Catholic and secular press. Of course, the reason is that last November, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops endorsed the cause of canonization for Day, moving her one step closer to sainthood. The timing of this endorsement seems providential; as our recent presidential election has shown, Read more
Earlier today, Algerian special forces raided a natural gas complex near In Aménas, Algeria where members of an al Qaeda-affiliated Islamist group had been holding hostage a group of workers from several countries. Tragically, the seven remaining hostages were killed by the militants before being killed themselves by the Algerian troops. That is in addition to at least sixteen other hostages killed Read more
Since last Sunday, Mexicans and Mexican-Americans have been celebrating Las Posadas, a nightly celebration of Mary and Joseph’s search for lodging in Bethlehem. Each night, people dressed as Mary and Joseph, or statues representing them, lead a procession to homes or churches where they ask for lodging (“posada” is Spanish for “lodging”). In some celebrations the procession is turned away at several Read more
Last week I argued that Catholicism’s engagement with Marxism in the twentieth century provides some context for the controversy over the relationship between Paul Ryan’s Catholic faith and his political views, a controversy intensified by the release of the “On All of Our Shoulders” statement. I suggested that both sides in this debate have made important points, but also one-sided ones. In Read more
Two and a half weeks ago several Catholic scholars published the document “On All of Our Shoulders,” which criticized the influence of the individualism and anti-government mentality of Ayn Rand, and libertarianism generally, on the ideas and policies of Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan, who is Catholic. The statement followed several earlier criticisms of Ryan along similar lines (for example here, Read more
I decided to join the Catholic Church in 1999, during my sophomore year at Hendrix College, a Methodist college in central Arkansas. The college required students to take two religion courses, and so in my freshman year I took a two part course on the History of Christianity taught by Dr. John Farthing, a now-retired church historian and Methodist minister. Although I Read more
For some time now, younger Catholic moral theologians have been discussing how the issues of concern to them are different from those of the immediate post-Vatican II generation that dominated the theological discourse for many years (this discussion has gone on long enough that many of those younger Catholic moral theologians are beginning to move out of that category…). Debates about absolute Read more
At the Republican National Convention two weeks ago, Texas senatorial candidate Ted Cruz, after outlining some of the problems faced by our country, said, “Government is not the answer. You are not doing anyone a favor by creating dependency, destroying individual responsibility.” Having earlier described how his father fled Cuba to Texas “not speaking English, with $100 sewn into his underwear,” Cruz Read more
Saturday Morning: 8:00 am
Saturday Vigil: 4:30 pm
Sunday: 7:30 am, 9:00 am, 10:45 am,
12:30 pm, 5:30 pm
Saturday Vigil: 6:15pm
Sunday: 9:00am, 7:15pm
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday & Friday: 8:30 am
