Aug
30
The Hermeneutic of Continuity
August 30, 2006 | Leave a Comment
That’s not just one of Benedict XVI’s catch-phrases, it’s also the name of a blog that I just found out about, run by Fr. Tim Finigan, pastor of Our Lady of the Rosary, Blackfen, UK. My attention was drawn to the blog by Dilexitprior at Letters From a Young Catholic, who links to Fr. Finigan’s [...]
Aug
30
Sing, Choirs of Angels–But In Your Own Voice
August 30, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Teófilo at Vivificat! reports on an essay from George Weigel’s syndicated column, The Catholic Difference, that is available at the Catholic Education Resource Center website. Weigel, it seems, dislikes the contemporary music sung in many Catholic parishes, not so much because most of it is schlocky drivel reminiscent of a late 70s incarnation of CCR [...]
Aug
30
Mel Gibson Wants His Read in Latin, and Only At Traditionalist Masses
August 30, 2006 | Leave a Comment
The Catholic News Service reports that Malgorzata Bednarek, the chief prosecutor in the Polish city of Bielsko-Biala, thinks that “the Catholic Church would be well suited” for publicizing cases of drunken driving: the names of offenders could be read aloud at Masses. According to the report, a spokesman for the Polish bishops’ conference said that [...]
Aug
30
The Centerpiece of our Worship
August 30, 2006 | Leave a Comment
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I attend Mass at St. Thomas the Apostle Parish whenever I’m in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and that I was excited to find that they had recently placed a new Tabernacle right behind the main altar. For your infotainment I’ve managed to find a photo of the setup [...]
Aug
29
A Strange New Affect(at)ion
August 29, 2006 | Leave a Comment
There is a preternaturally bizarre item in the 4 September issue of The New Rpublic. It is an open letter from Edward O. Wilson, of sociobiology, consilience, and biophilia fame, “to an imagined Southern Baptist pastor”. In this letter, Wilson rehearses all the usual crimes against nature that have been committed by evil old humankind, [...]
Aug
28
Michael Walzer on Fighting the Middle East War(s)
August 28, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Michael Walzer is known principally among philosophers and other moral theorists for his work on just war theory. His 1977 book, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (New York, Basic Books; second edition 1992; third edition 2000) was widely heralded as “one of the remarkably few books of lasting significance to [...]
Aug
28
Tiro Strikes Back
August 28, 2006 | Leave a Comment
You know you’ve hit the big time when you become both an object of derision and a paradigm of philosophical obtuseness in the international blogging scene. That’s what has happened to me, albeit both references are restricted to the Italian blog Cantor, one of the few blogs to get even less traffic than An Examined [...]
Aug
25
Robert Lanza Has (Human) Egg on His Face
August 25, 2006 | Leave a Comment
An update to my Wednesday post on stem cell research: CNS is carrying a story that claims that, in point of fact, the method announced in the journal Nature does not avoid the destruction of the embryo in most cases–and this is in addition to several other problems still associated with the procedure. Check out [...]
Aug
25
Must Be Running For Office
August 25, 2006 | Leave a Comment
A story at CNS reports that Cardinal Schonborn of Vienna thinks that his OpEd piece in the New York Times last year may have been “too much crafted with a hatchet.” It turns out that, in his opinion, “the church does not support creationism”, and “the church teaches that the first page of the Book [...]
Aug
23
No Rational Reason to Take Robert Lanza Seriously
August 23, 2006 | Leave a Comment
The New York Times reports today that there is now a method for utilizing stem cells that avoids destroying embryos. According to the author of the story, “if confirmed in other laboratories, [the research method] would seem to remove the principal objection to stem cell research.” That is, it would seem to avoid the destruction [...]