Columns
Spring Break
By Mark Silk — March 22, 2011
Off the grid, metaphorically anyway, on St. George Island. No blogging, if possible, till next Monday.
As Iowa Goes
By Mark Silk — March 22, 2011
So goes the GOP? Yesterday’s story by the AP’s Mike Glover takes us to the Hawkeye State, where, it seems, social conservatives are the force to be reckoned with. As someone whose brief career as a national political reporter took place during the 1988 cycle, I find it hard to imagine the Republican Party in […]
Jihad or not?
By Mark Silk — March 21, 2011
Whether the attack on Libya proves to be a successful exercise in humanitarian war-making a la Bosnia or another incursion into Middle Eastern quicksand, it raises an interesting question for the theology of jihad. Unlike our wars to overthrow regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in contrast to the largely peaceful protests taking place in […]
The Politics of Orthodoxy
By Mark Silk — March 18, 2011
Innocent readers of Julia Duin’s profile of Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) in Sunday’s Washington Post will conclude that His Beatitude has gotten himself cross-ways with the other bishops of his denomination because he’s been over-bold in attempting to lead them into the coalition of the religious right. That’s not the […]
Why Tea Partiers oppose DOMA. Not.
By Mark Silk — March 17, 2011
Over at ReligionDispatches, Sarah Posner uses the list of anti-DOMA members in the House of Representatives to show (again, correctly) why it’s a mistake to see Tea Partiers as economic rather than social conservatives. I’d just add that there’s a longstanding reason why the Tea Party has become the movement of the moment for social […]
GOP betting line: Huckabee v. Romney
By Mark Silk — March 16, 2011
According to the latest WaPo/ABC poll, Mike Huckabee is the top choice for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination. Mitt Romney is a close second. The Post‘s lede this morning is that Sarah Palin’s numbers among Republicans are heading south, which is a good story. But I’ve yet to see Beltway political scribes giving Huck serious […]
Philadelphia Story
By Mark Silk — March 15, 2011
Compared to what’s happening at the Fukushima Daiichi complex it may not amount to much, but the meltdown of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia is still pretty toxic. Yesterday was the first court appearance of three priests and a schoolteacher charged with raping boys in the 1990s. Plus big fish Monsignor William Lynn, the secretary for […]
Sauce for Donohue’s gander
By Mark Silk — March 14, 2011
Some of you may recall that a week ago, the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue took umbrage at my daring to suggest that the canon law doctrine of Scandal be jettisoned. It wasn’t that he disagreed with what I had to say about the doctrine but that it was the likes of me who said it. […]
Outlying white evangelicals
By Mark Silk — March 11, 2011
Pew’s latest survey of views on Islam and violence demonstrates again the degree to which white evangelicals stand apart from the other large religious groupings in American society. The question is whether or not you think the “Islamic religion is more likely than others to encourage violence.” The overall numbers haven’t changed much since 2003, […]
Newt’s Problem
By Mark Silk — March 10, 2011
Demagogue’s intellectual that he is, Newt Gingrich has a way of putting his finger on a problem that creates a problem for himself. To wit, here’s what he had to say to David Brody the other day about threats to our civilization: In a sense, our Judeo-Christian civilization is under attack from two fronts. On […]
Scandal Redeemed?
By Mark Silk — March 9, 2011
Over at DotCommonweal, the estimable Grant Gallicho takes up a cudgel on behalf of the doctrine of scandal. Yes it’s true, he allows, that the doctrine has been abused by bishops to protect their own. But it is within the teaching itself that Catholics might find a way through this slough. Because scandalizers are required […]
The Donohue League
By Mark Silk — March 8, 2011
Sheesh. You tell Donohue he’s right and defend his bud Dolan, and what do you get? A smack across the chops for having the chutzpah to suggest that the doctrine of scandal, used time and again to rationalize the shielding of pedophile priests, has not served the Church well and ought to be jettisoned. Now, […]
The Passion of the Huck
By Mark Silk — March 7, 2011
It’s no surprise that Barna’s new survey of the Republican presidential horse race (h/t David Gibson) shows Mike Huckebee doing well among Protestants, the more conservative the better. What’s striking to me is that he’s running neck-and-neck with Mitt Romney in the Catholic favorability sweepstakes: 45-32 as opposed to 46-29. Meanwhile, the unfavorables outweigh the […]
Ack! Bill Donohue’s right!
By Mark Silk — March 7, 2011
Last week, Jeff Anderson, the preeminent plaintiffs lawyer in Catholic sex abuse cases, released a letter from then Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan to then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger asking that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) do everything necessary to laicize an incorrigible pedophile priest named Franklyn W. Becker. In the letter, Dolan […]
Liberalism on the rise
By Mark Silk — March 4, 2011
The latest Pew survey shows increases in support for abortion, same-sex marriage, legalizing marijuana, and labor unions. On abortion, the gap between supporters and opponents has been growing for two years, and is now up to 12 points. Almost equal numbers of Americans now support as oppose SSM and pot is not far behind. Over […]
