Politically active Catholics who take the teachings of their Church seriously often turn to the body of papal and conciliar teachings known as Catholic Social Teaching (CST). While conservatives often emphasize the principle of subsidiarity found in these teachings – the idea that the organization closest to a problem is usually best able to solve […]
So if, as Albert Einstein insisted, Biblical religion was the necessary intellectual precondition for the gradual development of scientific method, how did the myth of the “scientific revolution” come about? One reason: For the past 400 years, the partisans of irreligion-from the Marquis de Sade to Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins-have deliberately misrepresented the way […]
In honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the start of the Second Vatican Council, I read John O’Malley’s magisterial history, What Happened at Vatican II. It’s a fascinating chronicle of the great theological earthquake that shook the Church to its foundations, throwing open doors to let fresh air into dusty mausoleums but also, at the […]
I would like to briefly examine the claim, made by advocates of Neo-Darwinism and others, that advances in contemporary systems theory now give a rational explanation for the development of highly complex structures in the universe without recourse to the hypothesis of a Divine Creator. Further, I will show that such claims, while purporting to […]
To say that the Bible is patriarchal is like saying that Tai Chi is Chinese: It is such a bewildering statement of the obvious that only an academic or reporter would think it a profound revelation. Yet in the 1970s and ‘80s, literally millions of feminists opened the Bible (some for the first time, some […]
It’s an amazing story, one only now being told. More than 1,300 years ago, a Persian Christian monk named Aleben traveled 3,000 miles along the ancient caravan route known as the Silk Road all the way to China, carrying precious copies of the New Testament writings (probably in Syriac). Aleben and his fellow Christian monks […]
According to rabbinic tradition, the first commandment God gives Adam and Eve in the Garden is to have sex: Pru vehravu, “be fruitful and multiply.” It’s little wonder, then, that Christian theology has pondered for centuries the place that human sexuality and bodily existence have in God’s plan for the universe. On the one hand, […]
The break-up of Al and Tipper Gore’s 40-year marriage is sparking a soul-searching among many long-time married couples. The Wall Street Journal today had an interesting article about the shifting marriage patterns among couples who have been married 30, 40 years or more. It turns out the Gores are typical of the baby boom generation: […]
I took my whole family to Rome this year for Easter… and, as usual, it was an invigorating, life-affirming, faith-building experience for everyone. Rome has a way of doing that to people. I’ve been to many of the great cities of the world – from New York, London and Paris to Berlin, Athens, Cairo and […]
Friends often ask me why, after all these years, we still go through the weekly ordeal of getting our large, rambunctious family off to Mass. I’ll be the first to admit it’s an ordeal. We usually attend the 9:00 a.m. Mass because of First Communion classes taught then (our five kids range in age from […]