A brilliant article by a German Catholic philosopher, Professor Thomas Stark, suggests that an argument beneath the argument may be afoot in the controversies that will be aired at the Synod of Bishops in October.
Author: George Weigel
Now Is the Time for All-in Catholicism
AT CHRISTMAS 1969, Professor Joseph Ratzinger gave a radio talk with the provocative title, “What Will the Future Church Look Like?” (You can find it in “Faith and the Future,” published by Ignatius Press). One of the concluding paragraphs was destined to become perhaps the most quoted excerpt from his extensive bibliography, when Professor Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI:
The Perils of ‘Preferred Peers’
ON CATHOLIC CAMPUSES that aspire to Top Ten or Top Twenty status in publicity sweepstakes like the U.S. News and World Report college rankings, one sometimes hears the phrase “preferred peers.” Translated into plain English from faux-sociologese, that means the schools to which we’d like to be compared (and be ranked with).
Flaws in Taking the ‘Long View’ on Russia
Queried about the Holy See’s less-than-vigorous response to Russian aggression in Ukraine, senior Vatican officials are given to saying – often with a dismissive tone, as if the question came from a dimwit – “We take the long view.” On the diplomatic side, that “long view” seems to be a reprise of the Ostpolitik of Cardinal […]
The Amazing, and Now Venerable, Father Al
AT AN INCH OR so over five feet and weighing, I would guess, something on the underside of 100 pounds, Sister Winnie, a soft-spoken Filipina, is not your typical dinner speaker. Yet a few weeks ago she held a room full of Washingtonians spellbound with her story, which is also the story of a largely unknown American […]
Flannery O’Connor and Catholic Realism
From this vale of tears, one can never be sure about the boundaries of acceptable behavior at the Throne of Grace. Is laughter at earthly foibles permitted? I like to think so. Which inclines me to believe that this past June, Miss Mary Flannery O’Connor of Milledgeville, Georgia, was having a good cackle.
Progressive Catholic Authoritarianism
BACK IN THE late 1960s or thereabouts, Father Andrew Greeley, the model of an old-fashioned liberal Catholic, accused Father Daniel Berrigan (the beau ideal of post-conciliar Catholic radicalism) of harboring an authoritarian streak in his politics. Father Greeley meant that, were Father Berrigan and his radical friends to achieve power, their aggressive sense of moral superiority would lead them to put Father Greeley and his liberal friends in jail. It was classic hyperbole for Father Greeley, but like some of his polemics, there was a grain of truth in it.
The Church and The New Normal
IN THE WAKE of the Supreme Court’s marriage decision, these sober thoughts occur: (1) The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has rendered a decision that puts the Court at odds with the Constitution, with reason and with biblical religion.
The Summer Reading List
FIFTY YEARS AGO, prior to my freshman year at Baltimore’s St. Paul Latin H.S., the late Father W. Vincent Bechtel introduced me to The Summer Reading List, upper-case. Father Bechtel didn’t fool around: He tossed his teenage charges into the deep end of the English and American literature pool and told us, in effect, “Start swimming.”
The Kasper Theory of Democracy?
A few weeks ago, after Ireland voted to approve so-called “same-sex marriage,” a correspondent sent me an e-mail quoting Cardinal Walter Kasper’s comment on the result: “A democratic state has the duty to respect the will of the people, and it seems clear that, if the majority of the people wants such homosexual unions, the state has a duty to recognize such rights.”