July 6, 2009
Writing on the engagement of online personalities Peter Suderman and Megan McArdle, the psuedonymous The Man From K Street writes:
How should they get married? This afternoon. At the Arlington County Courthouse.
No, I don’t really care if they do or not. But seriously–this is supposed to be a blog that gets all judgmental and stern about societal trends re: cohabitation and/or delayed marriage. Suddenly we can’t muster any criticism about two folks who have been shacked up for almost a year because, unlike blue-collar Wasilla types or drugged-out C-list celebrities, they are “our kind of people”?
Let’s not get hypocritical here, people.
The man has a point. As a side note, I know for sure Ms. McArdle doesn’t identify as a religious conservative. I’m not as familiar with Mr. Suderman, and therefore I won’t offer speculation. For that matter, I won’t make further mention of either of them. Over the past couple years I have been invited as a guest or to participate in two weddings where the couples had living together. In one case the couple had been living together almost as long as we had been married.
When I come across this, I’m more relieved than anything else. Marriage is a milestone. Much like a baptism, I don’t really care about your struggles getter there (obviously assuming an adult baptism): you become a Christian on that day, and that is what’s important. The only time I ever really object is if someone gets defensive and claims they’ve been married longer than my wife and me, if you include the years dating. (Since my wife and I have enjoyed 9 years of bliss now, I hear more the variation, it’s like we have been really married 3, 4, 5, or however many years.) My reply is always the same. No, you have been married x years. People who speak of their long discernments prior to marriage are often like 7-year bachelor degree candidates, they want credit for something they haven’t earned. And just like taking 7 years rather than 4 years to get your engineering degree isn’t a signal that you are more desirous to be an engineer, taking your time to get to an engagement isn’t a sign of maturity. Likewise, playing house during prior to your marriage isn’t a sign of maturity or signal for its likelihood of success. Well, actually it’s a counter signal.
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Posted by M.Z.
July 6, 2009
Creation was created out of love, and it is preserved in love. Love is the foundation of all that exists. Love unites, bringing all things together, doing so, neither monistically nor dualistically, but interdependently. Love is capable of raising that which is ontologically lower to experience the life and ways of that which is higher; love can bring about the reconciliation of all, so that in the end, God can and will be all in all.
How can we understand love? What does love do to those in love? Read the rest of this entry »
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Henry Karlson, Love, Personalism | 
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Posted by Henry Karlson
July 6, 2009
All attention will shortly be focused on Pope Benedict’s new social encyclical, which is supposed to be based on Pope Paul VI’s Populorum Progressio, issued in 1967. Today, then, I would like to focus on one of the ideas laid out by Pope Paul in his far-reaching document, an idea that seems to have been lost in the midst of time, and yet is more relevant today than ever before. It is the idea to set up a world fund whereby world leaders would “set aside part of their military expenditures for a world fund to relieve the needs of impoverished peoples”. Cut military expenditure, promote development.
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6 Comments | 
Catholic Social Teaching, Morning's Minion, War and Peace, militarism, war | 
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Posted by Morning's Minion
July 5, 2009
I know, I know, it’s a bit of Vox Nova tradition now to question the easy embrace of secular traditions by Catholics, and even the incorporation into the liturgy, at this time of year (yes, I heard America the Beautiful today). Let me approach this from a historical angle, and think about the slow death of Catholic culture. In medieval times, life quite literally revolved around the liturgy. Eamon Duffy, in his masterful Stripping of the Altars, makes this point quite lucidly — there was the six-month cycle from Advent through Pentecost, and about fifty feast days scattered throughout the year — feasts on which vigil fasts were kept, and no work was done. As a result of the reformation, the Enlightenment, the modern nation state, the modern economy, and secularism, we no longer cling to this tradition. But what have we lost? We have lost a life that revolves around the faith, around the liturgy. And we have replaced it with the wholesale embrace of the secular liturgy – in the United States, this includes “feasts’ like July 4 and Thanksgiving. I am not calling for a total withdrawal from secular society and a refusal to recognize these secular rituals. But must we as Catholics rush to embrace them so willingly, to even incorporate them in the liturgy? We once had something a lot better.
21 Comments | Morning's Minion, Nationalism, Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Morning's Minion
July 5, 2009
The relationship between God the Father and the Son of God normally has been conceived as the Son having been begotten of the Father outside of time, that is, the Son has been begotten of the Father in eternity. The relationship between the two is seen as analogous to human understanding of the relationship between a parent and a child, but not exactly the same[1]. The eternal begetting of the Son by the Father gives all that the Father has to the Son, so that, as the Nicene Creed states, the Son is “God from God” and “Light from Light.” Or, as the Gospel of John states, the life of the Father is given unto the Son and becomes the life of the Son, so that “…just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.”[2] In regards to the relationship of the persons of the Trinity, St. Augustine sees this as a way to understand the procession of the Spirit from the Son – that as the Spirit is said to proceed from the Father, so it must be understood, that the Son also has that same procession[3].
However, if we apply the Mahayana approach of emptiness, we can see that the generation of the Son is seen to be the emptying of the Father into the Son, but we must not confuse this emptying of the Father as being temporal.[4] The glorifying of the Father, of God, of the Absolute, is the self-emptying of the Absolute into the Son, and the very glory of the Son is, in parallel, the emptying of the Son back into the Father. Read the rest of this entry »
7 Comments | Comparative Theology, Henry Karlson, Trinity | Permalink
Posted by Henry Karlson
July 3, 2009
Balthasar’s Heart of the World has some rather unique, and disturbing, examples of how we have, in history, reacted to God – after the Christ event. He states what we often leave silent. What we do is try to put God in his place, to feel secure he is there, trapped, and outside of the ordinary, daily sphere of life. God is seen as an intruder, and even the words of the Word are used by us to shut him out:
“His kingdom is not of this world. For this reason he has no business in our worldly affairs. Let him have his cathedrals and he’ll let us have our banks, our shops, our politics, our schools, the works of our culture, our country. Let him have his game preserve, the ‘national park’ of his churches. We pledge neither to fell timber nor to hunt there. Our roads will be built to curve around this protective zone, and within this area he will be allowed to raise his strange mountain animals and his amazingly gnarled dwarf stone-pipes within reach of the glaciers.”[1]
What about us? Do we find excuse after excuse to put Christ away? Do we put him in a church, trapped, all alone in the tabernacle (or behind the iconostasis)? Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Henry Karlson
July 2, 2009
In a new low, Joseph Bottum spreads a rumor that Doug Kmiec will be appointed ambassador to Malta. Bottum’s response? “For Malta? It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world. But for Malta?”. Think about this for a couple of seconds. He is of course referring to Kmiec’s support for Obama last year. Bottum is suggesting that he has sacrificed his very soul. And why exactly? For endorsing a political candidate that Bottum did not like. For coming to the prudential conclusion that the pro-life strategy endorsed by Bottum and Co. is not working. There is no accusation that Kmiec did anything evil, or dissented from any core Catholic teaching.
But because Kmiec dares to disagree on political tactics, he is damned. He loses his soul because he will not support the party that brought you the Iraq war, torture, undistilled laissez-faire liberalism, and mockery of environmental issues. And in the meantime, Bottum’s First Things colleagues are busy adopting these very neocon positions relating to war and peace, telling us that the global financial crisis was caused by the poor and minorities, and that promoting climate change as a vast conspiracy against every American’s right to consume as much as he wishes. It’s not like the Church hasn’t condemned war, declared torture a non-negotiable, denounced the greed at the root of the financial crisis, embraced a pro-poor economic policy, and called for mechanisms to mitigate climate change, right? I would desist from judging souls if I were you, Mr. Bottum.
86 Comments | Abortion, First Things, Morning's Minion, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Morning's Minion
July 2, 2009
After an explosion of interest in the Catholic blogosphere surrounding the election controversy and subsequent protests in Iran, there has been no peep whatsoever regarding the obvious coup that has taken place in Honduras in which School of the Americas graduates removed president Manuel Zelaya from power.
This silence likely mirrors the relative silence in the u.s. corporate media in general. Latin America simply has not mattered very much to most North Americans, including North American Catholics.
What it certainly shows, though, is that the predominantly right wing Catholic blogosphere, ostensibly interested in independent reporting and commentary on matters from a faith perspective, is simply no different from the rest of america. Interest in “freedom” and “democracy” only goes so far. Cries for democracy are reported and affirmed only when the results would correspond to the Catholic right’s political positions. When the democratically elected leader is a somewhat left-leaning figure, democracy matters little.
For those who are interested in keeping up on the events in Honduras, I recommend the following sites:
Upside Down World
Democracy Now!
The Narcosphere
UPDATE: Send a message to Obama and Clinton here.
35 Comments | America, Democracy, Human Rights, Justice, Latin America, Media, Michael Iafrate, News, Politcal Apathy, Politics, School of the Americas, The State, Voting | Permalink
Posted by Michael J. Iafrate
July 2, 2009
It is the task of the State to provide for the defence and preservation of common goods such as the natural and human environments, which cannot be safeguarded simply by market forces. Just as in the time of primitive capitalism the State had the duty of defending the basic rights of workers, so now, with the new capitalism, the State and all of society have the duty of defending those collective goods which, among others, constitute the essential framework for the legitimate pursuit of personal goals on the part of each individual.
Here we find a new limit on the market: there are collective and qualitative needs which cannot be satisfied by market mechanisms. There are important human needs which escape its logic. There are goods which by their very nature cannot and must not be bought or sold. Certainly the mechanisms of the market offer secure advantages: they help to utilize resources better; they promote the exchange of products; above all they give central place to the person’s desires and preferences, which, in a contract, meet the desires and preferences of another person. Nevertheless, these mechanisms carry the risk of an ‘idolatry’ of the market, an idolatry which ignores the existence of goods which by their nature are not and cannot be mere commodities.
– John Paul II, Centesimus Annus 40.
4 Comments | Pope John Paul II, Quotes | Permalink
Posted by Henry Karlson
July 2, 2009
For those who don’t know, the G8 encompasses the US, Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Russia. The bishops representing each country have penned a timely open letter (hat tip, Rocco). See below:
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1 Comment | Climate Change, Economy, Ecumenism, Global Warming, Morning's Minion, Poverty | Permalink
Posted by Morning's Minion
July 1, 2009
Cross-posted at First Things
Inspired by Patrick Deenan’s outstanding essay about sociologist and cultural philosopher Robert Nisbet, I’d like to define a term that appears as a theme in his work and was popularized by Russell Kirk: the moral imagination. (The term comes from Edmund Burke, and its quotation is below the fold.) It can be defined as a uniquely human ability to conceive of fellow humanity as moral beings and as persons, not as objects whose value rests in utility or usefulness. It is a process by which a self “creates” metaphor from images recorded by the senses and stored in memory, which are then occupied to find and suppose moral correspondences in experience. An intuitive ability to perceive ethical truths and abiding law in the midst of chaotic experience, the moral imagination should be an aspiration to a proper ordering of the soul and, consequently, of the commonwealth. In this conception, to be a citizen is not to be an autonomous individual; it is a status given by a born existence into a world of relations to others. To be fully human is to embrace the duties and obligations toward a purpose of security and endurance for, first and foremost, the family and the local community. Success is measured by the development of character, not the fleeting emotions of status. Thinking “sacramentally,” (meaning humans are connected with a sacramental order of creation, a configuration of the mind in communion with the divine and beyond the rational) this is a sense that nature was created in such a manner that humans can draw “true analogies,” wisdom inaccessible by scientific method. Lived experiences, registered in memory and conjured through other experiences, can be interpreted through imagination so that memories may become images, analogous to the experience.
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Leave a Comment » | Culture, Human Person, Jonathan, Language, Philosophy | Permalink
Posted by jonathanjones02
July 1, 2009
Almost exactly two years ago, when this blog was first launched, and we were all more naive and innocent (!), I wrote a post entitled “Michael Novak’s Shoddy Economic Analysis“. I took him to task for misreading the economic data to prove his point, which was that inequality did not increase under the Bush administration. Well, folks, everybody’s favorite Catholic laissez-faire liberal has struck again, and this time he muses on the global financial crisis. In a nutshell, he blames it on the government and on poor people. This is what he says:
“government action was the principal villain in the 2009 debacle. It was the federal government that forced banks to make sub-prime loans to poor families (who were known to be unable to pay their mortgages on a regular basis)….The federal government even guaranteed the work of two huge quasigovernment mortgage companies—Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac—that wrote more than half of all mortgages during the fateful years.”
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8 Comments | Economics, Economy, Morning's Minion, Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Morning's Minion
July 1, 2009
First, I would like to say, how much I disagree with many of his comments, I think Deal Hudson has shown the ability to dialogue and enage with people better than most people do on blogs (myself included) and has shown the ability to listen, to some degree, those who disagree with him. It is for this reason I wanted to make a brief comment on his newest post at InsideCatholic: In Defense of Lila Rose and Her Sacred Deception.
On the one hand, I do agree with him, I think the expose of Planned Parenthood is a good thing, and it shows the problems of the insitution itself. Hopefully many will take note what is going on and demand further investigation (as they would if it were child abuse in schools or churches).
However, I disagree with his defense. Consequentialism is not the answer to this. You cannot say, “In war, anything is permissible.” You cannot say “intrinsic evils” are acceptable because the consequences are ones you like. That’s the point of declaring something to be an intrinsic evil — it is evil despite whatever good which can be seen from its use. It is always sinful. And, according to Catholic theology, lying is intrinsically evil (I wrote a whole series on this topic, which is wrapped up with links to the rest of the series, here ). Consequences do not determine whether or not it is appropriate (one, I am sure, could find benefits in war-time to the use of abortion, especially forced abortions on captured but pregnant enemy women, but it would not be acceptable and it would be a war crime).
So, one could ask, could one do what she is doing and not commit sin? What do readers here think (if one wants to read what I think, read my series on lies!).
11 Comments | Consequentialism, Henry Karlson, Lies | Permalink
Posted by Henry Karlson
June 30, 2009
“Oh, God! That boy moves in a very exceptional way. That’s the greatest dancer of the century.” – Fred Astaire
“I didn’t want to leave this world without knowing who my descendant was. Thank you Michael!” Fred Astaire (shortly before his death)
“The only male singer who I’ve seen besides myself and who’s better than me — that is Michael Jackson.” Frank Sinatra
Michael Jackson died unexpectedly on Thursday, June 25. The suddenness of his death came as a source of shock to all.
Some have used the occasion to present a contemptibly narrow view of his personal struggles. But as the months and years roll by, it is the contribution of his musical genius that will be written permanently in the hearts and minds of people everywhere. Even now, the greatest of his peers have recognized him as one of the most gifted and accomplished musical artists of the last century. Read the rest of this entry »
75 Comments | Beauty, Culture, Gerald L. Campbell, Music, Public Diplomacy, Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Gerald L. Campbell
June 29, 2009
As we watch the unfolding situation in Iran, one of the most frustrating aspects from the United States vantage point is the credulity granted to neocon commentators. The same coterie of warmongers who got it so disastrously wrong in Iraq are being given a bully pulpit to get it disastrously wrong in Iran. The target of their ire is Obama, who — while speaking out against state violence — refuses to come out in favor of the Moussavi party, or to threaten the regime with “consequences” at the present time. And they are given a voice, on television, and on the op-ed pages of leading newspapers (and the Washington Post is the worst offender). Yet again, we are hearing that the regime is about to fall, that American support will embolden the opposition, that American style “freedom” and democracy are coming to Persia. Remember Iraq? Remember the flowers that were supposed to welcome the American occupation militia? Remember the utopian discourse of “freedom and democracy”, a discourse unmoored from history and context? And now we are seeing it all again, with the same names and the same aims. And, as always, the solution is war, and the creed is the redemptive and transformative power of bloodshed.
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12 Comments | Morning's Minion, War and Peace, war | Permalink
Posted by Morning's Minion
June 27, 2009
I have been writing in this forum on some topics that, while important, are not the major focus in my academic work. I am, by trade, an ecumenist. I will be writing my doctoral dissertation on the question of Christ’s Presence in the Eucharist as a topic of ecumenical dialogue. In my first year of doctoral studies I was preparing a class presentation on the Eucharist with my professor when I casually mentioned Christ’s ‘physical presence’. She stopped me and said, “But Brett, that’s a heresy.” After checking with her to make sure I understood where the problem lay, I was absolutely delighted. I knew that many Catholics would happily teach that Christ is ‘physically present’ and feel that they were accurately representing the Church. I also knew that this was a major stumbling block to our ecumenical partners who suspected that such a claim was nonsense. If it was not, in fact, appropriate for Catholics to refer to Christ’s presence in this way, then there was certainly room for ecumenical progress.
Read the rest of this entry »
75 Comments | Aquinas, Brett Salkeld, Church Doctrine, Communion, Ecumenism, Faith, Magic, Orthodoxy, Real Presence, Sacraments, Theology | Permalink
Posted by brettsalkeld
June 25, 2009
part III
part II
part I
When I began re-posting these essays I admitted that I was unsure about whether the point to be made in this series was important to me or not. Now, that I have re-posted all the sections that I had already written, I am more convinced than ever to continue this series and try to connect to what I was trying to say previously.
I largely have to thank the astute comments in Part III from Zach, Ian Boudreau, and Josh Brockway for crystallizing this affection in me. In their straightforward critiques of this series’ “defense” of fascism, they actually clarify the very dialectic I am trying to deconstruct in these essays. Describing that dialectic in reply to their objections and pointing to the inner problem with the axiology embedded in that dialectic will be the purpose of this post.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by samrocha
June 24, 2009
“There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white,” — Nixon.
Two intrinsic evils in one pithy statement.
22 Comments | Abortion, Morning's Minion, Racism | Permalink
Posted by Morning's Minion
June 24, 2009
(Cross-posted at First Things)
It is, usually, far too awkward to import great figures of antiquity into current political discussions. That said, let’s give it a shot. Thinking through the definitions of conservatism, it seemed to me plausible that a conservative could perhaps make a claim to Cicero. This would assume an “imaginative,” not a historical, disposition: a divine intent in history, God-gifted immutable laws of morality, to which man has a duty to conform; order as a first requirement of good governance, achieved best by a restraint and respect for custom and tradition; variety as more desirable than systematic uniformity and liberty more desirable than equality; the honor and duty of a good life in a good community as taking precedence over individual desire; an embrace of a skepticism toward reason and abstract principle. Why Cicero? Following the Stoics, he taught that virtue and vice are distinguishable through a natural law, that there is an eternality to nature and a moral constitution to the universe, and that a “mixed government” might be advisable. Following the Pro Murena, let’s take a look.
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1 Comment | Books, Culture, Dialogue, History, Jonathan, Politics, Public Policy | Permalink
Posted by jonathanjones02
June 24, 2009
Part 1
Like the thief I confess to You:
Remember me, O Lord, when You shall come into Your kingdom.
Remember me, O Master, when You shall come into Your kingdom.
Remember me, O Holy One, when You shall come into Your kingdom.
After rejecting the way of the bad thief (Judas), we turn to the one who, by Christ’s side, proclaimed Christ and asked to be remembered by him in his eternal kingdom: St Dismas, the good thief.[1] Through Adam, we have all taken that which was not ours by right (the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil).[2] By nature, we are good; by our common sin, we are thieves. Read the rest of this entry »
5 Comments | Communion, Eschatology, Henry Karlson, Liturgy, Peace, Poverty, Solidarity, Theology | Permalink
Posted by Henry Karlson
June 23, 2009
By way of introduction, my step-brother about a decade or so ago joined some friends at a small translation company. Since that time, that company has internationalized web sites and documents for many companies worldwide, including a number of technology companies in northwest United States. He has decided to start a newsletter on language and culture. Since I know many of you have interests in foreign languages or the origins of words, I thought I would share it with you. And besides, throwing a bone to family seems only proper for a person writing on a moderately successful web site.
I think he hits about 15 languages in his opening salvo. A brief excerpt from his opening letter:
When we look at the Latin word for money, “pecunia”, which derives from “pecus” (”cattle”), an earlier value system comes into focus. The cow as a core unit of value is revealed in the English word “fee” (from the Old English “feoh” meaning “cattle, property, money”). Interestingly, the word “capital”, which appears in many European languages, and word “cattle” itself do not come to us from early words for the cow. Both are from the Latin “capitalis”, which means “principal”. Meanwhile, in Welsh the word “da”, which is generally used as an adjective meaning “good”, can be used as a noun to refer to “cattle” and “goods”.
The cow is not the only animal to find its way into our monetary lexicon. The root of the Russian word for money, “деньги” (”den’gi”), and the Turkmen equivalent of the penny, “tenge”, is the Turkic “tän’gä”, which literally meant “a squirrel’s fur”.
2 Comments | Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by M.Z.
June 23, 2009
It is interesting to note that in the 1940s and 1950s the assumption that the West was better endowed by Nature gradually gave way to another assumption, namely, that the West is more ‘advanced’ or ‘developed’ than other parts of the world. This too is based upon a myth — the myth that there is just one single path or ‘ladder’ of development open to all nations and that some are further up the ladder than others. Like the myth that the wealthy nations owe their prosperity to the bounty of Nature, the myth of development served the interests of the West. It led people to assume that because Western countries are wealthy and technologically advanced they are also more civilized. And it gave the impression to the people of the newly emergent nations that they could travel along the Western path to prosperity through ‘development’ — and could even catch up with the Western countries.
–Donal Dorr, Option for the Poor. (Maryknoll, NW: Orbis Books, 2002), 110.
13 Comments | Quotes | Permalink
Posted by Henry Karlson
June 22, 2009
When most of the attention is fixated on the government’s balance sheet (medicare and medicaid), the far bigger problem is private health care. Ultimately, this way of thinking is myopic – you might not be paying for it through higher taxes, but you are paying for it by lower wages (and some people are paying for it by being denied health care altogether – about 2 million each year fall into the ranks of the uninsured). See below:
Read the rest of this entry »
24 Comments | Health Care, Healthcare, Morning's Minion | Permalink
Posted by Morning's Minion
June 22, 2009
“And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful” (Col 3:15). The Divine Liturgy brings the people to this peace, the peace of the kingdom of God. We start the liturgy praying for it, and throughout the celebration, it is proclaimed upon us, showing us that we are in the presence of God. To experience it, we must open ourselves up, overcoming all selfish egosism, so that we can know Christ as the Prince of Peace. Having purified our hearts and minds in this manner, we are ready to partake of the body of Christ. And in that communion, we find ourselves united, one with another, as Paul reminds us: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (1Cor. 10:16-17). As when we receive any great gift, we, who recognize what we have been given, are grateful. In our worship we show that thanks. We are sinners who have consistently turned our back upon God, and yet, each time we falter, he is more than willing to forgive us and welcome us back to his presence because of his all-encompassing love. What more can we do but thank him? Indeed, this act of thanks is such an important part of our response that one name given to our celebration of communion is eucharist, that is, thanksgiving. This is what our liturgical celebration should be: an expression of our thanksgiving and praise.
Yet, communion is a great mystery – the mystery of mysteries. How can we who are sinners receive the all-holy one? Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Communion, Eschatology, Henry Karlson, Liturgy, Peace, Poverty, Solidarity, Theology | Permalink
Posted by Henry Karlson
June 21, 2009
Up here in Canada, there has recently been a lot of to-do regarding a family in Winnipeg who sent their child to school with Nazi symbols written on her body. The major question, socially speaking, has been whether or not these parents should retain legal custody of their children. We are loath to remove a child from his or her natural family, but we are also loath to let a child be raised as a virulent, and perhaps violent, racist. It does not take a lot of imagination to view such an upbringing as abusive, and the state has the duty to protect children from abuse.
Though it won’t be the first connection that most people make, this case has particular relevance for the group of Canadian parents (a large minority) who raise their children to believe that marriage is only possible between one woman and one man. The issue for these parents is, what happens in 5 or 10 years when their kids make a comment at school about their parents’ support of traditional marriage? In Canada, the narrative of same-sex marriage as the latest step in the extension of civil rights to historically oppressed minorities is virtually absolute, at least in the public square. In this narrative, same-sex marriage is a change to traditional marriage in exactly the same way that interracial marriage was. “And you’re not opposed to interracial marriage, are you?”
Read the rest of this entry »
171 Comments | Brett Salkeld, Canada, Children, Contraception, Culture, Culture of Death, Culture of Life, Democracy, Dialogue, Family, Homosexuality, Marriage, Sexuality, The State | Permalink
Posted by brettsalkeld
June 21, 2009
Thomas Merton’s Prayer for Peace:
“Almighty and merciful God, Father of all men, Creator and ruler of the universe,
Lord of all history, whose designs are without blemish, whose compassion for
the errors of men is inexhaustible, in your will is our peace.
Mercifully hear this prayer which rises to you from the tumult and desperation
of a world in which you are forgotten, in which your name is not invoked,
your laws are derided and your presence is ignored. Because we do not
know you, we have no peace.
From the heart of an eternal silence, you have watched the rise of empires
and have seen the smoke of their downfall. You have witnessed the impious
fury of ten thousand fratricidal wars, in which great powers have torn whole
continents to shreds in the name of peace and justice.
Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Morning's Minion, Peace, Prayer | Permalink
Posted by Morning's Minion
June 21, 2009
My wife and I learned during Holy Week that our daughter in the womb has a fatal condition called anencephaly; since then we have struggled to share with Vivian the little bit of life she has. My wife has done what she can to stay healthy, exercise, and eat well. She’s made our daughter birthday gifts to present to her at her hoped for day of birth. She’s felt her roll and kick in the womb, savoring those precious gifts from Vivian.
Prior to this experience, when pondering the meaning of fatherhood, I would have thought of showing my children affection, forming their character, teaching them their parts of speech, instructing them in the faith, or playing games of all sorts. I have been able to do these things and more with my son. My daughter will not likely have the opportunity to see me smile at her, hear my words of affection, or feel me holding her. Anencephaly doesn’t generally allow for such sensations.
I have come to the conclusion that what it means to be a father to Vivian is this: I am there with her, suffering with her, even if she cannot know me. Is this experience of fatherhood in any way akin to the fatherhood of God, who loves and weeps for his children? God doesn’t always get what he wants. He is our loving Father, not a cosmic engineer who prevents all disasters or fixes all breakdowns in the system. We certainly can’t fix our daughter’s condition. Nor could we have prevented it. It happened as many sad events happen. I love her and suffer with her, and therefore I am a father to her. I pray for the grace to be a good one.
10 Comments | Family, Kyle R. Cupp | Permalink
Posted by Kyle R. Cupp
June 19, 2009
In the field of economics, Christina Romer is one of the acknowledged leading experts on the Great Depression. It’s worth listening to her insights on the relevance of the Great Depression for today. Here she is in The Economist, (no left-wing magazine that)!:
Read the rest of this entry »
6 Comments | Economics, Economy, Morning's Minion | Permalink
Posted by Morning's Minion
June 19, 2009
I don’t know what the significance of this is, though I thought it was good to hear just as we are starting the Year of the Priests: When I was at the Newman Bookstore near the CUA campus, I was told that this year they unexpectedly sold out of their “ordination cards.” It was the first for a long time. They usually have left-overs at the end of every year, but this year, they sold out quickly, and they only got their new order of cards in this morning.
Now this could mean one of two things. Either this is an extraordinary year for ordinations (which should lead us to ask why) or it is the start of a new trend. Hopefully it is the second.
Let us pray for all the new priests that they remain faithful to their service to the Lord.
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Posted by Henry Karlson
