Just a few years ago, I was arguing in the comment boxes of a gay blog called Slowly Boiled Frog, a site that had gone after me hammer and tongs for years. I joined the combox conversation under my own name. I did it for fun, to sharpen my arguments, and, strange as it may … Read more
Can a Catholic support Bernie Sanders for president? In recent weeks, several noteworthy figures (including Mark Shea, Charles Camosy, and Fr. Dwight Longenecker) have tentatively suggested it might be possible to do this in good conscience. It’s an interesting discussion insofar as it raises important questions about how we should view our relationship to the … Read more
Four Catholic publications—two liberal and two conservative—issued a joint statement last week calling for the abolition of the death penalty. Even though the statement generated much unproductive controversy in the Catholic blogosphere, it also presents an opportunity for all sides to unite against a growing threat to innocent human life. Shea and Fisher React to Statement … Read more
There is a group of Catholics who experience same-sex attraction. They accept the teachings of the Church on sexual morality. They do not act on their same-sex desires. They are chaste. They live lives of prayer, brotherhood and friendship, along with a sexual chastity that is proper to their station in life. You might think … Read more
The topic of income inequality is popular not only among secular progressives but politically minded Catholics as well. If income inequality is a problem—and even libertarians would agree that it can be, depending on how the inequality comes about—the proposed solution is often for the government to “do something” about it, usually through confiscatory taxation … Read more
This is heartbreaking. While we decorate our churches this time of year with garlands and poinsettias, Iraqi Christians are having to surround theirs with concrete walls: Concrete walls up to 10 feet high are being built around churches in Baghdad and Mosul to protect Christmas churchgoers from violence. The barriers are the Iraqi government’s response … Read more
Thanks to Mark Shea (you did read his column this morning, “Counsel the Doubtful,” didn’t you?) for sharing this hilarious read: What happens when an American anthropologist tells the story of Hamlet to some African tribesman? Laura Bohannan’s thesis that “human nature is pretty much the same the whole world over” met its match in … Read more
A few links to get the Friday morning rolling: News: Copernicus’s grave and remains are identified, and he is reburied in Frombork Cathedral with honors. Not news: Media accounts breathlessly declare that the Vatican is “rehabilitating” the “heretical” scientist, in “repentance for its treatment of [him] over his theory that the Earth revolves around the … Read more
Given that Mark Shea’s column this morning is on feeding the hungry, this latest video from the Population Research Institute — exploding the myth that overpopulation is behind world hunger — is pretty timely. PRI’s POP 101 series is great — informative, well-produced, and starring the most adorable starving stick figures ever: Be sure to … Read more