Columns
SSM for the children
By Mark Silk — December 7, 2010
My pro-family argument for accelerating same-sex marriage has run into some flak from Touchstone‘s Jordan Ballor, who thinks I’ve committed a non sequitur. The burden of his argument: It’s true that we need to connect the natural telos of marriage to child-rearing rather than some ephemeral or hormonal understanding of pseudo-romantic love. But that would seem to […]
Biblical Themes
By Mark Silk — December 6, 2010
Sure, the usual First Amendment purists think there’s something wrong with Kentucky Gov. Steven Beshear’s plan to help solve his state’s unemployment woes by giving big tax breaks to support the construction of a Noah’s Ark Theme Park. Personally, I think he’s on to something. Something big. In these hard times, when imminent divided government […]
Marriage Woes
By Mark Silk — December 6, 2010
Ross Douthat today is touting a new study from the University of Virginia bemoaning the decline of marriage in Middle America. OMG, the educated elite is now more committed to family values and religion than Sarah Palin’s flyover majority–i.e. they go to church more, get married more, and divorced less. What’s the country coming to? […]
Faith-based Stimulus!!!
By Mark Silk — December 3, 2010
OMG, Politico is reporting, in a front-of-the-site, top of the page story by Ben Smith and Brian Tau: “Obama’s stimulus pours millions into faith-based groups.” And some of those groups were pleased at the manna from heaven! Who knew? Thanks for toting it up, Politico. But let’s see what all that pouring has amounted to. […]
DADT’s Catholic Supporter
By Mark Silk — December 2, 2010
Inasmuch as I previously singled out evangelical chaplains as responsible for the intensity of resistance to doing away with Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, it seems only fair to note the comparable opposition of the Catholic-in-charge, Timothy Broglio, Archbishop for the Military Services USA. To be sure, Broglio does not threaten to withhold priestly services from […]
Telling the pope to shut up
By Mark Silk — December 1, 2010
Lest you think the pope’s condom comments aren’t continuing to explode conservative Catholic heads, check out Sandro Magister’s latest post, “Friendly Fire on Benedict XVI. And a Condom’s to Blame.” In particular, consider this juicy scolding from Luke Gormally, Ordinary Member, Pontifical Academy for Life and Director Emeritus, The Linacre Centre for Healthcare Ethics, London, […]
DADT and the Chaplains
By Mark Silk — November 30, 2010
The Defense Department’s superb report on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell includes an interesting contrast between the racial integration of the U.S. military in the late 1940s and early 1950s and the current homosexual integration. Then, when the military was out in front of the rest of the country, the chaplaincy corps was strongly supportive of […]
Zonker Lives in Middletown
By Mark Silk — November 29, 2010
Down I-91 from where I work–and where I’ve sent all three of my sons–sits an institution of high learning once known as P.C.U. It has given American culture some wonderful things (e.g. Mad Men), and for the past 30 years has celebrated its own distinctive culture with festivals named in honor of Zonker Harris and […]
Casuistical
By Mark Silk — November 28, 2010
David Gibson has a fine wrap-up of the Great Condom Freak-out in today’s NYT Week in Review. His key point is that by justifying the use of condoms in certain cases as the lesser of evils, Pope Benedict has embraced the traditional Catholic approach to moral reasoning (casuistry) that he used to oppose. No wonder […]
Navy honors Puritans with religious intolerance
By Mark Silk — November 25, 2010
The Puritans had many good qualities, but a commitment to religious tolerance was not exactly their forte. Particularly obnoxious to them were the Quakers, whose understanding of an “inner light” in all people ran seriously afoul of Calvinist ideas of original sin. Quakers were therefore banned from all the New England colonies except Rhode Island, […]
Catholic Right very unhappy
By Mark Silk — November 24, 2010
Heads are exploding all over the Catholic Right (boom, boom, and boom) not because Pope Benedict has altered official Catholic teaching on condoms. (There is no official Catholic teaching on condoms per se.) It’s because (as the estimable Austin Ivereigh makes clear) Pope Benedict has countermanded what the Catholic Right would have you believe is […]
Papal Biggie after all
By Mark Silk — November 23, 2010
So now Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi has gone to the mountain and come back with confirmation that the pope not only said what he meant but also meant what Austin Ivereigh said he meant–that the use of condoms for the sake of preventing infection was a step in the right moral direction for women […]
Pope on condoms: no biggie?
By Mark Silk — November 22, 2010
That is the question. In the usual manner, there’s that tendency for those who like the way a papal statement sounds to make too much of it, and those who don’t, to make too little. And in the case of Benedict’s remarks on the use of condoms to prevent AIDS (“a first step in the […]
