by George Weigel TWO) RECENT BOOKS suggest that, amidst challenges and problems, the pace of authentic Catholic renewal is accelerating in the U.S. “Renewal: How a New Generation of Faithful Priests and Bishops Is Revitalizing the Catholic Church” (Encounter Books) by Anne Hendershott and Christopher White was nicely timed to coincide with Pope Francis’ recently […]
by Karen Osborne These days, you might ask your friends to “chill,” or post a “selfie” for Facebook. In the 1970s, you would have asked your friend “can you dig it?” or to “book it” from a boring party. Cool things in the 1920s were the “cat’s pajamas,” and people got the “heebie-jeebies” at Halloween. […]
by Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk In her still-widely-read 1971 article, “A Defense of Abortion,” Judith Jarvis Thomson sets up a thought experiment known as “The Famous Violinist Problem” to argue that abortion ought to be morally justified when a pregnancy arises out of sexual assault: “You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to […]
by Maureen Pratt Feeling sluggish? Dazed? Foggy? As if you’d like to hibernate for the rest of the winter? The period after the holidays can leave us feeling anything but energetic. A bit of that is the natural letdown from a festive and active season of celebrations, reunions and an outpouring of good cheer. If […]
by George Weigel My fascination with Ukraine began in 1984, during a sabbatical year at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. One of the first friends I made among my fellow Fellows was Dr. Bohdan Bociurkiw, a Ukrainian-Canadian professor at Carleton University in Ottawa. We first connected through a mutual interest in religious freedom […]
by George Weigel When Francis Eugene George first sought admission to the Chicago seminary in the 1950s, Chicago Catholicism imagined itself the future of the Catholic Church in the western world – and not without reason. A lot of the ferment in Catholic intellectual, liturgical and pastoral life that would eventually produce the Second Vatican […]
by Dr. E. Barry Gordon, M.D. UNFORTUNATELY, THE “Ask the Doctor” column of Nov. 23 about the risks and benefits of testosterone therapy was as inaccurate and misleading as most media reports concerning testosterone. Here I can only address a few of the fallacies. The author made major reference to the recently publicized Veterans Administration […]
by Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk AT THE BEGINING of December, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a sweeping federal lawsuit against the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops over its Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic hospitals and health care services, alleging that the directives, with their prohibition against direct abortion, resulted in negligent care of a […]
by Sister Karen M. Cavanagh, C.S.J. Are we there yet? How much longer? In today’s technological world, we might not hear that question uttered aloud from a traveler. In a car, we can check the GPS. On a plane, we can track our travel, the miles flown and miles to go and know almost exactly […]
by George Weigel The flurry of instabooks published shortly after the election of Pope Francis didn’t shed much light on the formation, character and interests of Jorge Mario Bergoglio or the likely trajectory of his pontificate. Now comes something serious: “Pope Francis: Our Brother, Our Friend – Personal Recollections About the Man Who Became Pope,” […]
