Aug
25
Say Whaaaat?
August 25, 2005 | Leave a Comment
Under what conditions would it be morally acceptable for the United States to assassinate a foreign leader? As questions about morality go, it seems kind of like a no-brainer: never. At least that’s the answer that any good Catholic would have to give. But you’d never know it to read Jim Tucker’s blog where we’re [...]
Aug
25
Ruling From the Heart
August 25, 2005 | Leave a Comment
Last week there was an interesting story at CNS about a statement from Bishop Donald Wuerl of Pittsburgh regarding the admission to Communion of Catholic politicians who support abortion (or, who take the mindless “I’m personally opposed but…” attitude towards abortion legislation). Yet on today’s “front page” of CNS there is a photograph of Pope [...]
Aug
25
God’s Design
August 25, 2005 | Leave a Comment
Yet another article in the NYT about the evolution / intelligent design debate. There’s not much new in the article–the story continues with the same old characters saying the same old lines. What’s different–though not new–is the story’s attempt to give a little more detail from the arguments of the two sides, trying to explain [...]
Aug
19
Don’t Say I Didn’t Warn You
August 19, 2005 | Leave a Comment
I’ve often thought that, if we force schools to teach ID alongside evolutionary theory, we will eventually have to teach Aristotelian physics alongside quantum mechanics. After all, the theory of universal gravitation is just a theory, and we ought not to prevent our students from being exposed to rival theories.
Apparently this has already happened without [...]
Aug
18
Do You Have Something in an Übermensch?
August 18, 2005 | Leave a Comment
The Times of London reports that a technique is now available to screen embryos for an eye tumor gene, thus giving “hope to families with the disease.” It gives somewhat less hope to the embryos that have the gene, however, because any technique for screening for such things is invariably used to weed out the [...]
Aug
17
Requiescat in Pace
August 17, 2005 | Leave a Comment
Brother Roger Schutz, founder of the Taize community, was murdered yesterday in eastern France. CNS has a story here.
Aug
16
Take Up Your Cross Daily
August 16, 2005 | Leave a Comment
An article from Catholic News Service yesterday reports on the Pope’s call for public and private displays of the Crucifix. The Cross, he said, is an external symbol of God’s presence among us and of humanity’s shared God-given dignity. We are imagines Dei, images of God, and external signs of what is inwardly true have [...]
Aug
9
When Dinosaurs Roamed the Halls of Academia
August 9, 2005 | Leave a Comment
Poor old Anthony Grafton! In fact, he’s not really all that old (he’s 55), and yet he’s already a dinosaur. It can’t be easy to live in a world where your ideas, your commitments, indeed your whole Weltanschauung, is nearly extinct. In part I must sympathize with him, because like him I study the past. [...]
Aug
8
We Live in Debauched Times
August 8, 2005 | Leave a Comment
I can’t decide which is worse, the fact that a respectable teacher of classics would think that this is a good idea, or that an equallly respectable teacher of philosophy would write such a glowing review of it. I don’t have anything in particular against the Potter novels in and of themselves–they strike me as [...]
Aug
8
Whited Sepulchres
August 8, 2005 | Leave a Comment
Further proof, if more were needed, that even well-educated people can have their heads so far up their asses that they can kiss themselvs on the lips from the inside. Mario Cuomo, like many “Catholics” in the public eye, seems almost to think of Catholicism as a liability rather than a strength. But more problematic [...]