Religion
Here’s an interesting result from a survey of U.S. Catholics done by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University in Washington, appearing in an article in the Rhode Island Catholic, but not apparently online anywhere: “The youngest Catholics … look a lot more like the pre-Vatican II [than the] Vatican II…
Mary Eberstadt offers a good introduction to the observational thought that pick-and-choose religion — specifically within Christianity — is not sustainable: Even so, it is the still longer run of Christian history whose outlines may now be most interesting and unexpected of all. Looking even further out to the horizon from our present moment—at a…
Joseph Bottum notes a piece of legislation in the United Kingdom that looms as a logical subsequent step for liberal legal and cultural trends in the United States: … the bill’s most controversial provision would enjoin churches and other religious bodies from discriminating on the basis of gender or sexual orientation in the selection of…
In keeping with the theme of confidence as a prerequisite to true tolerance, Joseph Bottum explores the way in which the authority represented by the papacy gives the Roman Catholic Church a theological coherence that has preserved its voice in modern society: For a long while, Americans thought Catholicism was an un-American form of religion,…
With the intention of zooming out a bit for some mid-afternoon reflection, I note Robert Louis Wilken’s review of a book by Tom Holland and its striking proclamation: That, at least, is the thesis of Tom Holland’s new book, The Forge of Christendom, a provocative and elegantly written account of the end of the first…
First, a line that’s supremely relevant for those of us who’ve been beating our heads against a wall of political inertia, in Rhode Island: In my experience, compulsively objective scientists are evenly matched, or even outmatched, by shamelessly subjective humanists. More than once I’ve been shocked by colleagues who seem unable to grasp that richly…
I heard about Grant Desme this morning on the radio. He’s a pretty good baseball player. The Athletics picked Desme in the second round of the 2007 amateur draft and he was starting to blossom. He was the only player in the entire minors with 30 home runs and 30 stolen bases last season. Desme…
A comment section recently brought out the topic of whether children are born with a moral sense and ended with BobN arguing as follows: … Young minds are very plastic and amoral. As Reagan said, freedom is never more than one generation away from being lost. Today’s society is filled with examples of young people…
Folks who remember Ryan Bilodeau from his days as a prominent College Republican at the University of Rhode Island might not know that he’s entered Our Lady of Providence Seminary. He tells his inspiring story in the current Rhode Island Cathotlic: My journey to OLP, like that of my brother seminarians, is a unique one.…
My Rhode Island Catholic column, this month, takes up the corrupting influence that associations and images can have on our thoughts: We live in a society that’s much too quick to dismiss the significance of simple associations, taking on faith that the images that splash across television screens and flood public spaces couldn’t possibly lodge…