I put a notice on the sidebar of this page a while back just to tell people that new content has not been added here recently. At this point, though, it also seems highly unlikely to me that this site will ever have new content. Thus, although what is online here now will remain here, visitors should not expect new content to begin again. Anyone wishing to contact me through this site can still do so through the link on the right. Thank you.

The quotes have been one of my favorite things to put up here, and there is a great quote from the Song of Songs that was brought to mind recently when I noticed it in the Liturgy of the Hours. (Among many reasons that the Liturgy of the Hours is great is the fact that one is regularly exposed to memorable Scripture passages that one would otherwise probably read or hear rarely, if ever.) So one last quote here, from Song of Songs 8:6-7.

After my recent post on marriage, the vocations crisis, etc., I remembered that I also originally meant to link to this commentary written some time ago by Dr. Jeff Mirus on marriage as "the forgotten vocation." I pretty much took for granted in my post the goodness and importance of marriage as a call to holiness, focusing instead on what strike me as related problematic approaches to vocations and vocational discernment. Anyway, this piece by Mirus seemed to me to be a really good short treatment of the foundational nature of marriage as a vocation.

Missed this a few days ago, but just noticed these great comments from Pope Benedict, published by Zenit, on the relationship of loving both the human and the divine. Wonderful simple and humble explanation of the Catholic take on the unity of these loves (which naturally must be based on a proper understanding of the relationship between God and the world). I particularly liked this Ratzingerian statement of purpose, as it were, on this point:

"I would like to work for this great Catholic synthesis, for this 'et-et' [and-and]; to be truly man--that everyone according to their own gifts and their own charism loves the earth and the beautiful things the Lord has given us, but to also be grateful for the light of God that shines on the earth, that gives splendor and beauty to everything else. ... Let us live in this Catholicity joyously."

Do read the rest--very short, but very nice. I never cease to be amazed that Benedict comes up with lines like this on the spot, in this case in a Q&A, not a prepared speech.

Broad support for increased surveillance cameras, according to ABC News

I'm not normally big on talking about polls, but seeing this story, I am reminded yet again of probably the best line from the preface by Walter Cronkite to a special 1984 edition of George Orwell's 1984: "It has been said that 1984 fails as a prophecy because it succeeded as a warning--Orwell's terrible vision has been averted. Well, that kind of self-congratulation is, to say the least, premature. 1984 may not arrive on time, but there's always 1985." Reading an article like this, and seeing cities already creating systems of thousands of surveillance cameras, how can one not relate this to Orwell's dystopia full of telescreens? Certainly, an increase in surveillance cameras is the least of our problems at this point, but what is disturbing is the uncritical public support for such things in general. Of course, this is a case of a poll telling us what we already know about our society. It is interesting, but not surprising, that support for this form of increased surveillance is high across political lines. It would be superficial to associate this type of thinking with any individual politician or party. People want this, and pretty much anything else which they can be convinced might make them safer (it need not be something that will actually do anything for them at all). Fear, which is always a powerful force, becomes essentially unconquerable in the post-Christian wake of the Nietzschean "death of God" in a civilization. The men of the West today cannot find any higher good than self-preservation, and thus will sell everything--their privacy, their dignity, the lives of others, their own souls if necessary--if they are only frightened enough. Welcome to 1985.

I have had some disorganized notes for a while concerning the reality of unrequited love and how it points to truths about the nature of love in general. I keep meaning to draw them together into something unified, but I haven't been able to do it yet. So I'm just going to write out some of my random thoughts based on these notes, since I can't seem to pull it all together. Maybe through posting these I'll be able to organize and unify it a bit more, and post something drawing this out more later. I meant to relate this more directly to some points of Christian theology, but I haven't quite figured that out yet.

I'm not trying to write about masculinity here, but since I don't really have this stuff organized and I have to start somewhere, I'll start by mentioning that I wonder if there is more of a connection with unrequited love in the masculine (which does not mean it doesn't occur in women, of course), since masculinity seems to carry more the aspect of going out to the other in love. I also wonder if unrequited love is particularly problematic for the masculine, since it seems to carry an appearance of impotence, at least if one has certain views of what power is, because unrequited love may seem to imply a certain inability to control, or grasp, or possess, or even conquer.  Read more »

This Sunday I went to a very reverently celebrated Novus Ordo Mass in Latin. I wish I could assist at such a Mass more often, but it just isn't practical for me to do so regularly in my location. Anyway, it was great, and the parish I went to has been having this Mass every Sunday for some time, but it is going to be replaced in a couple of months, after the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum goes into effect, with a Mass according to the 1962 Missal. I certainly can't critique this particular decision, particularly since I am not part of the parish and thus do not even know the background and circumstances of the change. It may well be a good thing. However, it does bring to mind something that has worried me a bit about possible unintended consequences of Summorum Pontificum.  Read more »

Almost every time I go Mass, I notice among the intentions listed during the prayers of the faithful something about more vocations to the priesthood and religious life. Of course, one almost never hears any similar intentions about more marriages. (To be fair, I did go to one parish church recently where I noticed that the pastor prayed for good and holy marriages right alongside vocations to the priesthood and religious life, but I think it's pretty clear that this is the exception, not the rule.) Obviously, I am not saying that we should not pray that we will receive in the Church enough priests, etc. However, I do think the constant prayers for vocations which refer exclusively to the priesthood and the religious life are a symptom of a common misunderstanding of the nature of the vocations crisis, a misunderstanding which also relates to misleading ways of looking at vocations in general.  Read more »

Last Sunday, we had the reading from the Gospel of John of the story of Mary and Martha (or what is best known as the story of Mary and Martha, although the story of Lazarus really is also a story of Mary and Martha), and I was reminded of a couple thoughts about the whole Mary/Martha relationship and the ways in which it is sometimes understood. There is an enormous amount that could be said about this, of course, but these are just a couple quick things I was thinking about.

This story of Mary and Martha is sometimes viewed as referring to an alleged tension between the contemplative life and the active life, and I think occasionally Mary is even identified explicitly or implicitly with the "religious life," thus identifying Martha more with the life of lay people "in the world." Any identification with particular vocations in this passage is immediately problematic because Mary is said to have chosen the better part, with the an implication that Martha could have chosen that too. In the case of vocations, there is no one vocation that everyone should choose, that represents "the better part" for everyone. It seems clear that it must be possible to sit at the feet of the Lord, as Mary did, in and through every vocation.  Read more »

How cool is it that a filly won the Belmont? People are always looking for the historic event of a Triple Crown winner in horse racing, but this is far more remarkable. One can try to come up with all sorts of reasons why Rags to Riches won in this particular case, but the fact is that no filly has won the Belmont in the last century. The funny thing about horse racing is that, even though it's pretty much entirely a fringe sport at this point, it still comes up with great moments, and more inspiring moments than purely human competition. Perhaps this is because the horses lack the complications of human athletic achievers, or because it is a sport of moments, rather than extended games. I don't know. I just know that I don't follow horse racing, but when Rags to Riches was coming down the stretch on the outside of Curlin I was rooting harder for her than I do for any human athlete or team in sports.

Bishop Skylstad, as president of the USCCB, recently named a new chairman and added some new members for the National Review Board (Catholic News Service story on Catholic Online). The new chairman is federal district court judge Michael Merz, and the new members are Robert Kohm (state Supreme Court justice), Emmet Kenney (psychiatrist), Susan Steibe-Pasalich (clinical psychologist), and Diane Knight (retired, career social worker, and former director of Catholic Charities Milwaukee). I don't know much about any of these people (though I find it interesting that Knight appears to be a Democratic supporter, having donated money to the Democratic National Committee in 2005, based on a search at Political Money Line). I also continue to be interested by the kinds of people who are named to this board. This does not necessarily have anything to do with the people named to the board themselves. However, their professions seem to be interesting indicators of how the bishops believe the clergy abuse scandal should be addressed, and thus of how the bishops conceive of this problem in the first place. The latest group of appointees is consistent with the membership of the board up to this point, which has been dominated by lawyers and to a lesser extent psychological professionals, as well as including others with backgrounds in social work, medicine, and university administration. These are certainly the kind of people our secular society accepts as experts, and even universal experts in a sense, but is our society's view of reality, and specifically of the human person, consistent with a Catholic understanding?  Read more »

This past Wednesday Pope Benedict focused on Tertullian in his general audience (English translation from ZENIT). Tertullian is fascinating, both as a towering (and now underappreciated) figure of the early Church, and as a cautionary tale of sorts. What really struck me about this, though, is the amazing amount that Benedict teaches. He deals with themes in Tertullian including the nature of Christian dialogue with the surrounding culture, non-violence, the centrality of hope in Christianity (which to me is a particularly great aspect), the Trinitarian formulation of one substance and three persons, and several other things. I'm not sure whether to be more impressed by the breadth of Tertullian's theological accomplishment, or the amount of substance Benedict squeezes into one Wednesday audience. Benedict, obviously a great theologian himself, has some particularly good words in relation to the downfall of Tertullian, and the proper relationship of the theologian to the Church:

"This great moral and intellectual personality, this man who gave such a great contribution to Christian thought, makes me think. It is evident that at the end he lacks simplicity, the humility to belong to the Church, to accept his weaknesses, to be tolerant of others and with himself.

When you evaluate your thought in terms of your greatness, in the end it is this greatness that is lost. The essential characteristic of a great theologian is the humility to stay with the Church, to accept her and one's own faults, because only God is all holy. We, on the other hand, are always in need of forgiveness."

Here is a cool and funny story, about the origins of McDonald's Filet-O-Fish sandwich (which in my humble opinion is the best fast-food fish sandwich available). One more thing for which Catholics can take credit! :-)

Well, as is described in this AP story on the MSNBC site, Texas has become the first state to mandate Gardasil, the HPV vaccine from Merck, for all girls entering the 6th grade. Texas Governor Rick Perry imposed this measure by executive order. This is deeply disturbing, but unfortunately I suspect Texas will be only the first of many states to take this step. Governor Perry apparently is trying to pretend this is an obvious choice, claiming that this vaccine is no different from the polio vaccine. That is obviously false, and he knows it, unless he is extraordinarily uninformed. The comparison of this STD to the once universally dreaded disease of polio is absurd. For that matter, if mandating this vaccine is such an obviously good idea, why did he feel the need to do an end run around the legislature and unilaterally impose this rule?

It needs to be emphasized that the common characterization of Gardasil as a cancer vaccine is misleading. This is a vaccine for certain strains of human papillomavirus. Granted, HPV can cause cervical cancer, so this vaccine indirectly can prevent cervical cancer. However, calling Gardasil a cancer vaccine is clearly inaccurate, although proponents of the vaccine have a motive to promote that inaccuracy, because it sounds better than calling this product what it is, a vaccine against a particular type of sexually transmitted disease.  Read more »

Ioannes Paulus PP. II
Karol Wojtyla
16.X.1978 - 2.IV.2005

As Rome prepares for the funeral of Pope John Paul II tomorrow, a funeral that will be like no other in the history of the world, the impact of his death continues to sink in around the world. John Paul II persevered for so long, overcoming previous health problems and outliving cardinals once named as potential successors, that it was difficult to believe last Saturday that the moment had finally arrived. The Pope is dead. There are few more depressing words in the Catholic world, and the news has been all the more devastating in this case because this Pope was uniquely beloved.

It has been pointed out that in all probability far more people saw John Paul II in person than anyone else in history. So many people have emotional stories of their experiences in seeing him, or in some cases even meeting him. However, perhaps even more indicative of John Paul II's importance to the world are the reactions even from the many people who have no such stories. Like many others, earlier this week I shed tears for a man I never even saw in person.  Read more »

Today's topic is being nice. Sometimes I think we have to remind ourselves that "being nice" is important. The word "nice" may have been overused in various contexts and thus lost some of its force, but it still does have a proper meaning applied to the way we treat others. In some circles perhaps undue emphasis is placed on being nice, at least in the sense that some people seem to think it is all that counts. That is not true, of course. However, I think that even people who make that mistake tend to overemphasize niceness more in the way they talk about it than in the way they actually treat other people. Looking around at the world, it seems to me that few if any people actually are too nice to each other.

Now, it is important to establish first of all a basic idea of what I mean when I talk about "niceness." I mean something that has primarily to do with one's actions in relation to other people. When children are told to be nice, they generally understand that they are being told to treat each other with kindness, not to do mean things to each other, not to insult each other, and so forth. Whether children regularly obey and do these things is another question, but they know that this sort of thing is what is meant by "being nice." I think that definition is essentially the same for adults. Also note that "niceness" generally cannot be acted out in relation to conveniently distant people, even if they need our help. For example, we may be "charitable" or "generous" to poor people whom we will never meet, in donating money or goods to help them, but we usually do not say that we are being nice to people in a scenario like that. Almost by definition, being nice is something that must be done in relation to those with whom we come in some sort of immediate contact, which most often will include family, friends, acquaintances, co-workers, and even complete strangers with whom we have some type of personal contact.  Read more »

In case you have been living in a cave on another planet for the last few months and haven't heard about it, on November 2 there is to be a presidential election in the United States, pitting George W. Bush against John Kerry. That's not the bad news. The bad news is that presumably one of them will be elected.

In one way, I wish I could vote for John Kerry. On foreign policy I think Kerry is better than Bush. Of course, that is not saying much given that in my opinion Bush is one of the worst presidents in history on foreign policy. On economic and fiscal policy, much as I hate to say it, Kerry is not measurably much worse than Bush. Both candidates plan on running large annual deficits throughout the next four years, which means both favor higher taxes across the board at some point, whatever they may say now. I even like Kerry's personality better than that of Bush, and I know that is unusual. Bush has a certain everyman quality and "regular guy" charm that is an advantage for him politically, but that kind of thing just does not appeal to me. I don't want a regular guy as president. I want an achiever, someone who is above-average, someone who is obviously intelligent and knowledgeable and intellectually curious, and someone who knows how to pronounce "nuclear." (I'm not saying that Kerry entirely fits the bill on all that--and of course, since these men are politicians, both of their public personalities may be fake to a significant extent.)  Read more »

Recently there has been some criticism of the issues questionnaire that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops sent to the two major party presidential candidates, George Bush and John Kerry. Although the questionnaire is not yet public, certain people outside the USCCB have obtained copies of it, and have been disappointed by the nature of the questions. There has been a Washington Times article on the subject, and Deal Hudson has written about Bishop Rene Henry Gracida from Texas, who criticized the questionnaire. (I am aware that the Washington Times and Deal Hudson would be considered essentially partisan Republican sources, but Bishop Gracida is presumably not, and in any case no one from the bishops' conference disputes the basic facts presented about the questionnaire.)

To summarize, out of forty-one questions, there are more questions on immigration (seven) than on any other one issue. There are also questions on the minimum wage, farm subsidies, and broadcast licensing, among other issues. Meanwhile, there are only three questions on abortion and one on embryonic stem cell research. Apparently the questions are also in alphabetical order, rather than categorized in some way that might indicate that there is a hierarchy of importance among the different issues on the questionnaire. Of course, the bishops can distinguish the importance of various moral questions in their teaching in other contexts, and therefore we must hope that they will do more in the future before the election to clarify the importance of specific issues addressed in the questionnaire. However, that still leaves the question of why they would issue a questionnaire in the first place that blurs rather than clarifies the relevance of Catholic moral teaching to crucial contemporary political issues.  Read more »

Anyone who follows the politics of abortion in the United States knows that a lot of pro-life politicians never actually do any more for the pro-life cause than they absolutely have to in order to be called pro-life. They are, in a sense, uncommitted pro-lifers. They trot out their pro-life position come election time in a couple of carefully targeted speeches to groups of social conservatives, and, well, that's it really. They never commit in any serious way to the belief that abortion is the taking of an innocent human life. If legislation emerges about abortion most of these politicians try not to get too involved in promoting it, but if eventually forced to vote on it they vote on the pro-life side (at least as long as the legislation is not too controversial). So pro-lifers sigh and go to the polls at election time and vote for these candidates, because they're better than nothing, or at least better than pro-abortion candidates. Such is life as a pro-life voter in the United States in 2004.  Read more »

The National Review Board originally established by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to look at the problem of clerical sexual abuse recently issued its report, including data provided by the John Jay College Study commissioned by the review board, on allegations of sexual abuse of children by priests between 1950 and 2002. Obviously, the sheer size of the numbers involved is almost mind-numbingly tragic. However, to be honest, the principal reason for the review board report as a whole was not to determine the exact statistical extent of the problem. That would be impossible, and in any case exact numbers are not necessary in order to know that there is a serious problem. The real purpose of the report was to gain a better understanding of the problem. From this perspective, although the report is much better than it might have been, it has a serious internal inconsistency which, in my mind at least, robs it of much of its credibility as a possible source of insight on clerical sexual abuse.  Read more »

The issue of so-called gay "marriage" seems to be constantly in the news these days. The Massachusetts Supreme Court recently decided that homosexuals have a right to marry in Massachusetts, and now marriage licenses for homosexual couples are being issued in San Francisco in violation of California state law. These events follow several years after Vermont established civil unions which in many ways legally mimic marriage for homosexuals.

Unfortunately, looking at recent events, there can be no question which side is driving the issue in the contemporary political battle over the nature of marriage. While homosexual activists are pushing their agenda as much as they can on every level of government and society as a whole, those in government and politics who supposedly want to defend traditional marriage are heming and hawing. President Bush has repeatedly flirted with the idea of a constitutional amendment defining marriage as being between a man and a woman, but still has not actually endorsed the idea. He has said that "if judges insist on forcing their arbitrary will upon the people, the only alternative left to the people would be the constitutional process." However, this statement is meaningless, because this statement came after the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision, when the "if" clause stated here was already a reality. Activist judges are "forcing their arbitrary will upon the people" on the issue of marriage, but Bush still refuses to commit to supporting a constitutional amendment to deal with this problem. With marriage licenses now being issued to homosexuals in San Francisco, Bush says that he is watching the situation carefully, and he is "troubled" by it. Really? Troubled, eh? That sounds serious ... but not serious enough to try to do anything about it, apparently. Bush seems continuously on the point of deciding that the situation is serious enough to warrant a constitutional amendment, but it is not apparent what would convince him that the situation has reached that level of seriousness.  Read more »

In a recent interview with Famiglia Christiana, a weekly in Italy, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger discussed many topics, and made a remark on bishops' conferences that particularly caught my attention. He noted the problems caused by the large size of the bishops' conferences in some nations. Said the cardinal, "There is a risk that the discussions and the solutions will be guided by the bureaucracy . . . a deeper exchange on disputed topics is impossible." The solution, Ratinger suggested, might be for more points to be decided by each bishop for his own diocese.  Read more »

This past Sunday at the Mass I attended the priest talked in part of his homily about the choice one makes to follow Christ, and the consequences that are part of that choice. I cannot remember his words exactly enough to quote him, but basically he made the point that one of the consequences of choosing to follow Christ is a commitment to accept the whole truth that we receive from Him. Therefore, it is totally inadequate for a Catholic to say "I believe eighty percent of what God teaches me through the Catholic Church," or "I believe sixty percent of God's teaching, and the rest is wrong." Taking such a position does not merely involve a rejection of one truth or another, but rather indicates a completely different world view, incompatible with truly following Christ. Once one has gone that far, there is no fundamental reason why one cannot drop to fifty percent, or forty, or twenty, or zero, for that matter. Leaving the Catholic Church entirely becomes logically possible and acceptable the moment one decides that this or that teaching is wrong. Furthermore, if God is wrong on anything, then our whole faith is nonsense, since such an imperfect God clearly cannot be God. If on a particular issue an individual decides that he, and not God, has the real truth, and rejects the teaching of God, then in effect he is setting himself up as God. None of this is anything new, of course, but it was good to hear it proclaimed clearly in a homily (and, in fairness to the priest, I should say that the points made in his sermon end here, and everything from this point forward is purely my own thought).  Read more »

Recently the Bush administration raised its estimate of the federal budget deficit to $455 billion for this year, and $475 billion for next year. Those will be by far the two largest deficits in the history of the United States, and they come when the Republicans, the supposed party of fiscal responsibility, have the presidency and a majority in both houses of Congress. Clearly, "supposed" is the operative word in the phrase "supposed party of fiscal responsibility." There is no longer even the excuse that Reagan had in the 1980s, when he could point out that it was a Democratically controlled Congress that kept raising spending (although, in fairness, he allowed them to do so without much meaningful opposition, and he and other Republicans supported some of the spending increases). In the present time, Republicans and Democrats have been continually sparring, with Republicans talking about the economic stimulus of tax cuts, and Democrats complaining that the deficits are due to tax cuts, and, unbelievably, in some cases advocating even more increases in spending.  Read more »

Not too long ago the practice of Communion under both species (both the consecrated hosts and the consecrated wine) was instituted at the Sunday Masses in my parish, and I believe throughout the diocese. Of course, this has been done in many parishes throughout the country for some time now, and in the past year or so many more have adopted the practice. There has been a push for a while now towards extending the use of Communion under both species, and the guidelines now in place on this practice in the United States very much encourage the extension of it. This is all part of an increasing trend for many years in favor of the practice, particularly in the United States. I personally do not take the consecrated wine at Mass, and I think I would find it more of a distraction than anything else to do so on a regular basis. That said, some people seem to appreciate the opportunity, and in a way I can understand that. The Church as a whole and the American bishops conference in particular are certainly well within their rights to encourage this practice if the hierarchy considers it pastorally advantageous at this time, although I admit I have some reservations about it. I write here, not to attack the current policy, but to express some of my own thoughts on the policy, and to raise some points that perhaps should be considered in the future in determining the prudence of the universal availability of Communion under both species.  Read more »

The issue of abortion has been in the public eye recently more than usual. There was speculation during this past spring that one if not two Supreme Court justices was likely to resign soon, and that brought up the topic of potential Supreme Court nominees and Senate confirmation hearings, in which abortion is always a controversial issue. However, that possibility has not developed, so the topic never went beyond the point of discussion. What did reach the floor of the Senate this summer was a partial birth abortion ban bill. This bill was very similar to a bill that during the Clinton years passed easily in both the Senate and the House (by a veto-proof majority in the House, in fact) before being vetoed by President Clinton despite widespread popular support. The re-introduction and then the inevitable passage of this legislation stirred a lot of discussion on the issue of abortion. When it was apparent that the bill would finally succeed, the more radical among those in the pro-abortion crowd moaned loudly, while pro-lifers were ecstatic, and understandably so. Anyone who has been following the pro-life cause for years knows that getting any pro-life measure through both houses of Congress and getting a presidential signature has never been easy. This is, in fact, the first case I know of since Roe v. Wade in which a national law has been made banning any type or class of abortion. At first glance, then, this appears to be a milestone, and so it is ... but largely a symbolic one.  Read more »

Perhaps the most persistent and frustrating problem for people who profess a belief in a God of infinite goodness is the phenomenon of suffering. Everyone suffers, and much of the world seems sunk in the problems of poverty, violence, and all kinds of misery. Even in places and times where there seem to be good reasons for happiness and contentment, there is often great suffering. Even the people who seem as if they have everything going their way are sometimes tormented by untold interior pain that those around them never see.

Some people simply are never bothered as much as others by internal questions about the reasons for suffering, and how suffering can be permitted by an all-good God. For many, though, this area poses a difficult challenge, perhaps the most difficult challenge, for our personal faith. The Judeo-Christian tradition identifies sin as the reason for suffering. Although individual suffering is not necessarily a punishment for personal sin, all human suffering arises in one way or another from sin. The history of human suffering thus begins with the original sin of Adam and Eve, and in a sense the situation worsens with every personal sin throughout the ages since then. At least on one level, this is a rationally satisfactory answer, in that it identifies the root of suffering. However, suffering remains mysterious. Even if sin causes suffering, could not God prevent much of the suffering in the world? After all, it is not as if there is just a little suffering here and a little suffering there. It is all over the place, affecting every person, no matter how good or bad the person, in every situation. If God is all-good and all-powerful, why must there be so much pain?  Read more »

Abortion. Today the very word implies controversy. Many politicians practically flee in terror at the prospect of having to talk about anything relating to abortion. The topic generally isn't even mentioned in "polite" social settings, for fear of offending someone. Public opinion polls in this country show a nation terribly split, or perhaps splintered, on abortion. A pro-abortion position is established in the law of the United States, which basically mandates the right to get an abortion at any time and for any reason. Abortion is clearly an issue on which there is little or no moral consensus in our culture.

In these circumstances, it is hard to grasp how different the common view of abortion was as recently as the decade before Roe v. Wade. It is informative to examine the definitions and descriptions of abortion as a word in the 1960s. In 1966, Webster's Third New International Dictionary defined abortion, among other definitions referring to miscarriages, as the "criminal expulsion of a human fetus." The current edition of that same dictionary now defines abortion as "the induced expulsion of a human fetus." Naturally, all reference to the criminality of abortion has been removed from the dictionary, because abortion is no longer legally a crime. What is remarkable from our present perspective is that as recently as 1966 the criminality of abortion was so taken for granted by society that abortion was not described as a crime merely in the legal code of this or that jurisdiction, but actually defined as criminal in one of the most authoritative dictionaries of the English language.  Read more »

For months now, the news has been dominated by the possibility of an impending attack on Iraq by the United States. It now appears that such an attack will begin within days if not hours. This proposed war is said by the United States to be a preemptive attack to prevent future danger to the United States, based on the belief of the United States government that Iraq possesses chemical and biological weapons, in violation of the weapons restrictions to which Iraq has previously agreed. In these circumstances, Catholics are once again faced with a question that has faced them many times in the past: is this a morally just war?  Read more »