Another Angle on Cradles
The question is whether we can learn to use religious language as a form of self-emptying, not self-justification.
Catholics and prayer in public schools
The conjunction of two recent articles on American Catholic history, specifically the history of prayer in schools, provides a timely warning for church involvement in politics.
Atheists at prayer for Christmas
Spencer Case: “Dear God, I have come to the conclusion you probably don’t exist, but I’ve also come to the conclusion that any one view I hold may turn out to be mistaken, however unlikely the odds seem.”
What kind of sycophant do you want me to be?
Fraud, including sycophancy, is endless: it corrosively renders all interactions questionable.
Bring on hip-hop Erasmus
As Peter Berger said, humor posits its “effervescent” reality against the “dense, heavy, compelling” reality of the present.
The Boss and Catholicism: Springsteen’s memoirs
Springsteen’s world remains one of “great and harsh beauty, of fantastic stories, of unimaginable punishment and infinite reward.” The world is “dark and beatific,” a place of intense grace but also where we can turn into devils.
John Wesley, Catholic forerunner?
John Henry Newman wrote, "Who would not rather be found even with Whitfield and Wesley, than with ecclesiastics whose life is literary ease at the best, whose highest flights attain but to Downing Street or the levee?"
The strange endurance of torture
The “logic” of torture, that “it was okay to torture the guilty,” continued in Chicago policing at least into the 1970s.