With less than a month to go before the mid-term elections, and with Catholic Democrats who voted for Obamacare in trouble, the Catholic Health Association is determined to do all it can to help remove the stigma. As everyone should know by now, Sr. Carol Keehan, CHA president, has been in the foreground of those … Read more
Over the past two weeks, I’ve had extensive discussions with a wide group of Catholic leaders about the state of the Church in the United States. The frustration and impatience among Catholics, which I discussed last February in “Is It Time for a Catholic Tea Party?,” continue to grow. The occasions for this discussion were … Read more
This year’s election season promises ever greater challenges to the fake Catholic political groups. Catholics United and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good seem to be running out of ideas for how to convince Catholics to vote for the same Democratic candidates who had promised in 2008 to support Catholic teachings on life issues, … Read more
Salon staff writer Tracy Clark-Flory thinks Americans need to be more like the Dutch when it comes to teenage sex. In a recent column, she wrote that Dutch parents can teach their U.S. counterparts about “respect and acceptance of teenage sexuality.” Clark-Flory finds her views supported by a couple of studies, including one from 2003 … Read more
According to an article in The New York Times last week, there’s a debate going on in academic circles (mainly among psychologists and sociologists) as to whether a new developmental stage should be officially acknowledged. It’s called “emerging adulthood” and it covers the 18-29 age range. It could happen the same way the stage of … Read more
So, those end-of-life conversations we were talking about yesterday? To the list of questions to ask your doctor, you may want to add, “Do you believe in God?” Doctors who are atheist or agnostic are twice as likely to take decisions that might shorten the life of somebody who is terminally ill as doctors who … Read more
Interesting findings from a Reuters review of 255 health-care systems in the United States: Catholic and other church-owned systems are significantly more likely to provide higher quality performance and efficiency to the communities served than investor-owned systems. . . . Catholic health systems are also significantly more likely to provide higher quality performance to the … Read more
On Friday, the FDA approved a new emergency contraceptive called “ella,” which can prevent pregnancy up to 5 days after sex. It passed with little fanfare or resistance, compared to the uproar surrounding the approval of Plan B, also known as the “morning after” pill (which is effective up to three days at most). The … Read more
I missed this June article by Fr. James Martin, SJ, about how our spiritual lives are affected by the digital age. (The piece in The Huffington Post was adapted from his new book, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything.) Other articles like this one have come out detailing the ways electronic media is changing how … Read more
One of the best examples of the battle between personal freedom and government regulation is the raw dairy issue. More people are turning to raw dairy — often for health reasons — and because of this, we’re seeing more crackdowns by regulatory bodies. Just a few months ago, an Amish farmer not far from me … Read more
Clergymen used to be a healthy and long-living bunch. But over the past few years, studies have shown that pastors are in worse health than other Americans. Their rates of obesity, hypertension, and depression are higher, and their life expectancy is lower. As The New York Times reports, experts don’t agree on any single explanation … Read more
Just as Catholic parishes and schools sigh with relief that the sex-abuse crisis appears to be under control, a new sexual predator is emerging, preying on Catholic teenage boys in schools across the country. This new predator is younger, gentler in appearance, nearer in size and age to the young male victims, and enjoys an … Read more
Economist Mark Perry points out one of the unintended consequences brought about by the president’s new healthcare program: White Castle has been offering health insurance to its workers [since] 1924, but Obamacare “will make it hard for the company to maintain its 421 restaurants, let alone create new jobs,” says company spokesman Jamie Richardson in … Read more
This year marks the centenary of G. K. Chesterton’s What’s Wrong with the World. The book continues to inspire and surprise with its prophetic insights on issues from economics and property, to its bracing defense of the “wildness of domesticity.” And what is wrong with the world for Chesterton? “What is wrong with the … Read more
The phrase “Après moi, le déluge” is attributed to Louis XV on his deathbed. Fifteen years later, in 1789, the French Revolution confirmed his prediction: “After me, the flood.” Whether the king felt a sense of foreboding of things to come or simple indifference, the expression seems an apt description of where our nation stands … Read more
How much stupidity and how many lies can you stuff into a single press release? Jon O’Brien, president of Catholics for Choice, has raised the bar in both categories with the following statement from today. I have bolded both the stupidity and the lies and added a few comments in [CAPS]. Do you think O’Brien … Read more
How much stupidity and how many lies can you stuff into a single press release? Jon O’Brien, president of Catholics for Choice, has raised the bar in both categories with the following statement from today. I have bolded both the stupidity and the lies and added a few comments in [CAPS]. Do you think O’Brien … Read more
This excerpt comes from Berry’s essay “The Body and The Earth” in his collection The Art of the Commonplace: It is therefore absurd to approach the subject of health piecemeal with a departmentalized band of specialists. A medical doctor uninterested in nutrition, in agriculture, in the wholesomeness of mind and spirit is as absurd as … Read more
David Weigel has apologized for the nasty anti-conservative comments he made to members of the liberal listserv Journolist, and is frank about his own motivations. I was cocky, and I got worse. I treated the list like a dive bar, swaggering in and popping off about what was “really” happening out there, and snarking at … Read more
David Weigel has apologized for the nasty anti-conservative comments he made to members of the liberal listserv Journolist, and is frank about his own motivations. I was cocky, and I got worse. I treated the list like a dive bar, swaggering in and popping off about what was “really” happening out there, and snarking at … Read more