Kennedy's niece certainly thinks so: Palin fails to understand the genius of our nation. The United States is one of the most vibrant religious countries on Earth precisely because of its religious freedom. When power and faith are entwined, faith loses. Power tends to obfuscate, corrupt and focus on temporal rather than eternal purposes. Somehow …
The Love of Our God
Hitchens vs. Blair: The Result Depends Upon the Premises
It's not surprising that the Guardian has trumpeted the result of the Munk Debate in Toronto as Hitchens 1 Blair 0.  (For a more reasonable take on the debate, one should turn to His Grace.) The results of the polls aren't surprising either; Hitchens went into the debate with a lead amongst those polled, and …
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Abu Daoud Writes the Pope
And let's hope His Holiness gets around to reading it: The first reform I suggest is regarding Holy Scripture. One of the most recurrent themes in conversion narratives of Muslims is the reading of the Bible. Yet how many hundreds of thousands of emigrants live throughout the West without access to the bible in their …
Blessing the Animals, and Must the Rector Search Committee Have Its Own Chaplain?
I still don't get this: Two congregations will celebrate the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi with a blessing of the animals. The Episcopal Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea invites pets and their owners to the celebration Oct. 3. The procession into the church will begin at 8:45 a.m., with the service starting at 9 a.m. Coffee …
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Is Roman Catholicism Really the Ultimate Form of Fundamentalism?
That's what David Phipps of the Church Society tells us re John Henry Newman's conversion to Catholicism: No one can be a Catholic without a simple faith, that what the Church declares in God's name, is God's word, and therefore true. A man must simply believe that the Church is the oracle of God. When …
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National Service Committee of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal: Newsletter, June-August 1981
In digging through some archives, I've put together three issues of the newsletter of the National Service Committee of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal for June-August 1981. There was nothing special in the selection, just what I had available. There is one noteworthy event covered in the June issue: the meeting of Ralph Martin and other …
Note to Damian Thompson: Lay Off the Old Album Covers
He couldn't resist the dig for the artwork being used for the Pope's upcoming visit to the UK: I swear, the Catholic Church in this country is incapable of designing anything that doesn’t feature Pentecostal flames that look as if they’ve been copied from a 30-year-old album cover. I’m sure the Holy Father will be …
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Rufinus on the Canon of Scripture
From his Commentary on the Apostles' Creed (36-38): Whence also the Apostle says, "All Scripture given by inspiration of God is profitable for instruction." And therefore it seems proper in this place to enumerate, as we have learned from the tradition of the Fathers, the books of the New and of the Old Testament, which, …
Gregory the Great on Rome (and Perhaps Us) Prepared to Decline
This, from his Homilies on the Gospel 28, is just too much like our own time: There was long life and health, material prosperity, growth of population and the tranquillity of daily peace, yet while the world was flourishing in itself, in their hearts it had withered away. Our epitaph also? Translation from Donald Dudley's …
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Positive Infinity 