Keep it Simple…For Now?
One day in the agora, tradition has it, Diogenes passed a group of spiffily dressed Athenians and dismissed their finery as “mere affectation.” A little later, a group of Spartans wearing homespun and...
View ArticleCome Back, Magdi Allam!
I’m still hoping that Pope Francis’ election won’t serve as the starting gun in a race out the Church doors, the finish line being sects and denominations that seem somehow less Francis-like. But if my...
View ArticleBut They Couldn’t Call Her A Kike
In 2005, Cindy Sheehan, mother of a soldier slain in Iraq, was becoming the official face of the antiwar movement. The profundity of her loss and the sincerity of her bereavement made her moral...
View ArticleThe Church and Gays: No Earthly Reason
Yesterday morning, ten LGBT-rights activists gathered outside St. Patrick’s cathedral for Mass and found themselves, so to speak, stonewalled. They were warned — first by New York City police officers,...
View ArticleHow’s That “Culture of Encounter” Workin’ for Ya?
On Wednesday, May 22, Pope Francis called on Catholics and non-Catholics to build a “culture of encounter,” in which members of the opposing camps “meet one another doing good.” Apparently stealing a...
View ArticleThe Witness of Mary Elizabeth Williams
Salon staffer Mary Elizabeth Williams calls herself “a gay-friendly, feminist, pro-choice, bigmouthed practicing Catholic.” In two weeks, she expects to watch as her older daughter is confirmed in the...
View ArticleFrancis’ Pontificate: No Rest for the Aesthetic-Minded?
Pope Francis Article at Huffington Post You’ve got to hand it to Katrina Fernandez. Yesterday on the Crescat blog, she really nails her colors — and spangles, and sequins, and possibly feathers — to...
View ArticleDarn Tootin’ Pope Francis Is A Liberal
Last month, Elizabeth Scalia, my managing editor, proposed a moratorium on “liberal,” “conservative,” and suchlike labels in discussions of intra-Church divisions. I’ve been a good boy ever since, but...
View ArticleThe Day the Pope Said ‘Gay’
Fielding questions from the press on his way home from World Youth Day, Pope Francis skirted the question of whether or not a “gay lobby” exists in the Vatican. His expression of support for...
View ArticleIs Big Father Watching Us?
In one scene from Annie Hall, Alvy (Woody Allen) finds his argument with Annie (Diane Keaton) cut short by a blowhard who invokes the name and work of Marshall MacLuhan in a harangue he’s delivering to...
View ArticleAre You A Blessed Imelda?
It was one of those happy misunderstandings I come by whenever I have to speed-read something. Yesterday, in his long and candid interview with America Magazine’s Fr. Antonio Spadaro, Pope Francis...
View ArticleThe Church and the Cracked Kettle
My parish’s associate pastor comes from the Phillipines. At Sunday Mass, I sit only about one-third of the way back, and church acoustics are topnotch. Nevertheless, when Father takes the pulpit, I...
View ArticleOn Meeting a Young Drunk Again
The next time I saw him, it was about six in the morning. He was sitting on the bench in the smoking section with his jaw slack, his eyes nearly shut, and his hair sticking straight up from his head —...
View ArticleWho Moved My Chiesa: A Corporate Casualty’s Guide to Getting Along with Priests
Meghan and I are about the same age, but for several years, scarcely a day passed without my checking the Republic for her obituary. When I worked in foreclosures, I scanned our files for her name and...
View ArticleYes, He’s the Burying Kind
We should have buried Erich Priebke. Or rather, since protesters in Albano Laziale effectively derailed Priebke’s funeral cortege, forcing officials to suspend the service, we should have tried....
View ArticleThe Ugliest Piece of Religious Art Ever
Here’s a sampling of Facebook comments on Pope Francis’ new ferula: “Okay, I think I know what it looks like: Remember those old magnetic things where there were contained iron shavings, and there was...
View ArticleA Nameless Dignity
Am I the only one feeling uneasy about the coverage of Pope Francis and the man with neurofibromatosis? It’s not that I mind seeing the man, whose neck and head are covered with benign tumors...
View ArticleVicino Riva’s Taste of Paradise
So it turns out the guy Pope Francis hugged and kissed to such great fanfare last November 6 does have a name. It’s Vicino Riva. It also turns out he has a history. Now 53, Riva lives in Vicenza, just...
View ArticleBuilding the Kingdom in Bad Weather
In 1943, the UK’s Catholic Herald reports, Léon Degrelle was excommunicated by the bishop of Namur for “brutalising” a parish priest at his hometown of Bouillon, in Belgium. “Brutalising,” in this...
View ArticleWhat They Call Turkeys in Turkey
I’m only about 74 paragraphs into Evangelii Gaudium, so any serious commentary will have to wait until Black Friday. But I get the gist — all evangelization, all the time, right? Well, in that spirit,...
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