thoughts in and out of season
James Kalb The strong Church support for the United Nations and the international human rights movement has always seemed odd to me. The UN and human rights movement want to do more than promote within limits a few universally-recognized goods like peace and prosperity. What they want is to establish an effective system of universal governance that … More ...
Some comments I made on the problem of evil in alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic:
… More ...Peter> one could ask, if one believes in the traditional idea
Peter> of an omnipotent, omniscient, loving God, how does one
Peter> reconcile that with the fact that this God, allows
Peter> innocent children to be periodically killed by natural
Peter> disasters?You’re asking
Another book finished: Michael Rose’s Goodbye, Good Men. It’s not a must-read, and I didn’t read the whole thing. It’s an accumulation of horror stories tending to show that many Catholic seminaries in recent decades have been dominated by homosexual cliques, heretics or both, that responsible officials have been disinclined to do much about … More ...
I just finished Ralph Wiltgen’s The Rhine flows into the Tiber. There was nothing very surprising in the book—to my mind it reaffirmed what I’ve thought before, that it’s an odd idea to call an ecumenical council to have open-ended discussions on what to do in general and make universally binding decisions. It’s … More ...
Writing in U.S.Catholic, Notre Dame theology professor Lawrence Cunningham has some problems with the way the word “dissent” is used today. He points out that it can be OK for a Catholic to discuss doctrinal or a moral issues with the intent of clarifying them, as in the case of certain novel reproductive … More ...
A few stirrings of opposition to the new sexual order:
Some comments on random news stories related to sex:
Justice Kennedy is no genius, but in Lawrence v. Texas he did make some interesting conceptual moves:
Looks like patriarchal structures have more of a future than WomanChurch: The Importance of Fathers to Churchgoing. A Swiss survey shows that if both father and mother attend church regularly 33 percent of their children will become regular churchgoers. If the father attends irregularly and the mother is non-practicing 25 percent will become regular … More ...
More on on sex and the death of the West: Young men are running from marriage. They’re sleeping around while waiting for that soulmate who never comes, and view pregnancy and children as a trap.
The article, written by a female columnist for a newspaper’s “Lifestyle” section, naturally pins the blame on men: “If … More ...