"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."
Opinion > Business
The Church on the financial meltdown: Usury and speculation are to blame
If there’s anyone in the mainstream media willing to listen to the Church these days (I doubt it), they’ll discover that centuries of Catholic teaching about the sinful practices of usury and financial speculation can explain why Wall Street is tumbling down. (For the best technical explanation, read The Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy… READ MORE >
Opinion > Politics
David Brooks explains the Republican Party’s Catholic problem
In a NY Times column today called “The Social Animal,” David Brooks pinpoints exactly why so many Catholics hold their noses every four years as they vote Republican for president merely because of the party’s stance against abortion and gay marriage. As any Catholic who’s watched a Republican convention knows, the GOP… READ MORE >
Opinion > Politics
Pro-Life vs. Family Values? Is Newsweek’s Jacob Weisberg promoting eugenics?
The culture war is back, stronger than ever, with the liberal media completely flummoxed over how to handle Sarah Palin. But what’s really thrown them is Bristol Palin’s unwed teen pregnancy, and the Republican Party’s surprisingly warm-hearted, non-judgemental response to it. How else to explain Jacob Weisberg’s bizarre… READ MORE >
Opinion > Culture
‘The Father of the World’—The Pope at the U.N.
As I listened to the Pope’s U.N. address, while driving through Manhattan with Godspy editors John Romanowsky and John Murphy, and my son Gianni, on our way to videotape among the crowds at Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza, just outside U.N. headquarters, I thought to myself—what could I possibly write about the Pope’s astonishingly deep… READ MORE >
Opinion > Faith
How the Media is Missing the Pope’s Radical Critique of American Religion
I sometimes think that Catholic theology operates on a super high frequency that just doesn’t register on some people’s hearing. That’s the conclusion I came to when I read veteran NY Times Vatican-beat reporter Alessandra Stanley’s summing up of the papal visit so far. Comparing it to Prince Charles’ second wedding to Camilla Parker… READ MORE >
Opinion
Beyond Politics at the White House: What the Pope said, and what he didn’t say
As I listened to Pope Benedict XVI’s speech at the White House this morning, I thought of a very wise statement about God: “He loves us just the way we are, but he loves us too much to let us stay that way.” All popes follow this method, the one established by Jesus: Communicate unconditional love specifically to every person and nation,… READ MORE >
Opinion > Faith
Beyond Benedict, ‘the American Pope’
Time Magazine’s recent cover story about Benedict XVI’s upcoming visit had two headlines: “Why The Pope Loves America,” and “The American Pope.’ Neither title was accurate. It’s hard to imagine the soft-spoken, intellectual, Mozart-loving pontiff as somehow quintessentially American. But is it true that he loves America? Sure,… READ MORE >
Opinion > Issues
Driving a Wedge into the ‘Evangelical Center’ on Gay Marriage
Why is it taboo within the cultural left to “privilege” marriage in any way? Several years ago I came across a snarky little news item in New York Magazine titled: “The Smug Marrieds Head Underground: Pro-marriage propaganda to invade subway.” What sort of propaganda was this? They were subway billboards produced by an abstinence advocacy… READ MORE >
Opinion > Faith
Easter and the Problem of Evil
This Easter I waited for the usual Newsweek, Time or U.S. News magazine cover story about “Why Jesus Really Died,” or the “Lost Christianities” the Church has supposedly suppressed in centuries past. Mercifully, I didn’t notice any (I did find a very respectful photo essay on Ireland’s religious orders in Newsweek). Could it be… READ MORE >
Opinion > Politics
What the Presidential Election Reveals About the American Soul
With the death this week of Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolare movement, the passing of the generation that founded the lay movements and greatly influenced Vatican II is accelerating. St. Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei, died in 1975, and Servant of God Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement, died in 1980. Within… READ MORE >
