For B: Bone of my bone July 26, 1985 – May 9, 2015 “As of all foods, bread is the most essential, so the thought of death is the most necessary of all works. The remembrance of death amongst those in the midst of society gives birth to distress and meditation, and even more, to [...]
In a recent article in The New Yorker, Rachel Aviv depicts how Belgium has “embraced euthanasia as a humanist issue.” Not only the terminally ill, or even those in intense pain, but also those suffering from depression may receive “The Death Treatment” and be treated to a “dignified death” through a fatal chemical cocktail. How [...]
It is almost fifty years since the “Spanish Inquisition” sketch by Monty Python’s Flying Circus was first aired on British television. Today its catchphrase, “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition,” has an enshrined place in popular culture. It is, however, ironic that the well-known catchphrase contradicts the grim reality of life in our increasingly secular culture. [...]
I grew up in a secular humanist home with highly “educated” parents who were very much the product of the modern age when it came to morality. My parents were good folks, and when I would ask for advice about a particular moral quandary, they would invariably tell me to “pick a course of action [...]
Christopher Henry Dawson has been called “the greatest English-speaking Catholic historian of the twentieth century.“[1] He was also a profound conservative critic of contemporary Western culture and his indictments were based on a synthetic interpretation of the history of mankind which is one of the most impressive ever produced. His analysis of the decline of [...]
Secular Franciscanism offers a world of individualism, but what opens up before us is a new secularism in which a figure like St. Francis enables people around him to think about the potential of human existence in a new way. Francis of Assisi rapidly became the most universally popular of Christian saints, canonized only two [...]
Most of us have been told from a young age that religious beliefs cause strife. The early modern “wars of religion” are portrayed as merely the most overt form of what happens when religion is allowed too much influence in public life. Of course, Protestant and Catholic forces fought on both sides of these conflicts. [...]
Everywhere one looks today, it appears that proponents of secular liberalism are celebrating another social victory lap. While eighteen states plus the District of Columbia currently allow so called ‘same-sex marriage,’ the recent Supreme Court decision striking down the Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional may have effectively redefined marriage for the entire country. The [...]
In June of 1979, the recently elected pope, John Paul II, passed through the Iron Curtain, to his homeland of Poland. Over the course of nine days, the world witnessed a profound display of distinctly Christian rhetoric that ignited the moral imaginations of a people bound under the yoke of communism and atheistic materialism, sparking [...]
The emergence of classical Christian education over the last few decades has thrown into relief the question of the relationship between public education and Christian witness. With ninety-percent of children in the U.S. attending public schools, the modern pulpit appears generally indifferent on the issue of private vs. public education for its parishioners; indeed, one [...]