thoughts in and out of season
Some stories in the Bible are so clearly contemporary that critical scholars in the year 4000 will almost certainly view them as interpolations from our own period. The Temptation of Christ (Matthew 4:1-11) is an example. Immediately after his baptism Christ went off to fast and pray, and the devil tempted him with the conquest … More ...
I’m told I have to choose one. At the moment I’m inclined toward Thomas, after Thomas the Apostle and Thomas Aquinas. It seems to me the two span the possibilities of faith seeking understanding. Both had faith, but they differed in their ability to say what it was about. In the end they weren’t so … More ...
Here’s a good interview: Fr. James V. Schall on Reason and Faith. He touches on natural law and its critics, modern natural rights, St. Thomas, the Greek thinkers, Leo Strauss and his notion of a standoff between reason and revelation, the flaws of Islam, the current crisis in the Church, and what not else. … More ...
Religion is inevitable. A religion is an understanding of what is real, together with conclusions for the basic principles of morality. Any such understanding can reasonably be called a religion, since it provides an account of ultimate reality that is not fully demonstrable but gives answers regarding ultimate questions by which we live.
Each of … More ...
I love the Tridentine mass more the more I attend it. In part it’s because of its clarity. If someone who had no idea what was going on saw it the only way he could make sense of what was happening would be to assume that everyone there thought there was something enormously important going … More ...
It does bother me that American Catholics won’t sing at mass no matter what the hymn. A priest I know with Polish and German conections blames the Irish. On the Continent, he says, it’s not like that. I dunno—there are lots of Italian-American parishes in Brooklyn, and so far as I can tell they’re the … More ...
The Italian publisher of Mother Theresa’s letters and diaries seems to be putting out some teasers: Mother Teresa’s diary reveals her crisis of faith. Still, she became such a symbol that it does seem doubtful she was exactly as portrayed and as people wanted her to be. It will be interesting to find out … More ...
The Pope’s message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees (“To Overcome Racism, Xenophobia and Exaggerated Nationalism”) is in one sense typical—it follows the line all respectable Christian religious leaders now follow—but in another sense quite extraordinary:
I’m dubious too about the projected war with Iraq, although the reason may be that I know so little about the situation. Still, it’s important to sort through the issues rationally. With that in mind, it seems to me that the definition of “just cause” as a case in which “the damage inflicted by the … More ...
“The question of whether God exists is less important than whether he is love.”
I’ve run into this a couple of times now on Catholic blogs and it really seems wrong to me. If we talk about God while putting his existence to one side a statement about his nature becomes a statement about our … More ...