by George Weigel WHAT DOES THE Lord’s injunction to turn the other cheek require when it comes to ecumenical dialogue? The question regularly poses itself to those familiar with the website of the Department of External Church Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC): https://mospat.ru/en.
Author: George Weigel
Changing the Game
FOR THOSE OF US who find it impossible to cast a vote for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump on Nov. 8, this poem by Artur Miedzyrzecki, written during Poland’s Solidarity revolution, has a certain resonance:
Golden Memories of a Golden Anniversary
After Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium was torn down in the old hometown in 2002, I began describing the vast empty space left behind as “the abomination of desolation.” That old brick horseshoe was where I learned baseball from my grandfather Weigel in the late 1950s – and where, a half-century ago, I had a foretaste of the joy of the Kingdom.
Speaking of ‘Deplorables’
You’d think presidential candidates would have learned that shooting from the lip in front of deep-pocket donors is asking for trouble.
The Vatican, China and Evangelical Prudence
Recent remarks by the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, have fueled speculation about a possible exchange of diplomatic representation between the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
They’re Confessors, Not ‘Culture-Warriors’
LIKE SHELBY FOOTE’S three-volume masterpiece, “The Civil War: A Narrative,” Francis Parkman’s seven-volume colossus, “France and England in North America,” is worth reading and re-reading for its literary elegance as well as its historical insight.
Quebec: Catholicism’s Empty Quarter
Québec, a flourishing Catholic region for centuries, is now Catholicism’s empty quarter in the western hemisphere. There is no more religiously arid place between the North Pole and Tierra del Fuego; there may be no more religiously arid place on the planet. And it all happened in the blink of an eye.
He’s Not ‘Turning His Back to the People’
Cardinal Robert Sarah caused a rumpus this summer by proposing that the Catholic Church return to the practice of priest and people praying in the same direction during the Liturgy of the Eucharist.
Joe Biden Is Father Isaac Hecker’s Fault?
U.S. Catholics generally know little about the Church’s history in our country. But whether you’re trying to fill gaps in your knowledge or just looking for a good read, let me recommend Russell Shaw’s “Catholics in America – Religious Identity and Cultural Assimilation from John Carroll to Flannery O’Connor” (Ignatius Press).
God and Brexit
I’d like to suggest another, perhaps deeper, answer to the question of the EU’s current distress: to put it bluntly, the “democracy deficit” is a reflection of Europe’s “God-deficit.”