Columns
Chaplains ret., in favor of DADT
By Mark Silk — April 30, 2010
The letter sent to President Obama and Secretary of Defense Gates by a group retired chaplains begging for retention of Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell is not exactly a testament to intellectual honesty. The chaplains–evangelicals and other conservative Protestants–are exercised that if the military “normalizes homosexual behavior” it will impinge upon their own religious liberty. But as […]
Same old religious politics
By Mark Silk — April 29, 2010
The recent Gallup survey of partisan congressional preference shows (surprise!) that the electorate remains just about where it’s been for a decade when it comes to religious divisions. The more frequent worship attenders are more Republican; the less frequent, more Democratic. The biggest gap is among the Nones–those who say they have no religion–who prefer […]
Sorry, Dreher, no cheese
By Mark Silk — April 28, 2010
Over at the blog formerly known as Crunchy Con, Rod Dreher has discovered Mother Noella Marcellino, the famous cheese nun of Regina Laudis Abbey in Bethlehem, CT. Impressed with an account of her rap analogizing cheese maturation to the contemplative life, Dreher asks if there’s anywhere he can buy some of the cheese she makes: […]
Levada fumbles
By Mark Silk — April 28, 2010
With Greece teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and Portugal, Spain, and Ireland not far behind, we are entitled to pose the question, “Is the Catholic Church too big to fail?” As tends to be the case for actors of comparable girth in the financial sector, the answer would seem to be, “Yes, probably.” But […]
Clerical Penance: A Modest Proposal
By Mark Silk — April 27, 2010
Fr. James Martin, S.J. has been been hither and yon urging that what’s been missing in the Catholic hierarchy’s response to the current abuse crisis has been penance, as in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. As warrant for his position, he cites the pope’s recent suggestion that some penance might be in order at this time. […]
Jones’ Jewish Joke
By Mark Silk — April 26, 2010
Today, National Security Adviser Jim Jones apologized for telling a Jewish joke that some in attendance at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy found offensive. He allowed as how it had been “inappropriate.” What was it? As originally reported by the Forward‘s Nathan Guttman, the joke went like this: A Taliban militant gets lost […]
O tempora! O Douthat!
By Mark Silk — April 26, 2010
Today, Ross Douthat bewails the decline of civilization as manifested by Comedy Central’s censorship of South Park’s recent representation of Muhammad. On the one hand, Douthat laments the kowtowing of the network before the implied threat of a marginal Islamist website. On the other, he laments that, these days, only Islam seems off-limits to sacrilegious […]
Obama goes to Billy Graham’s Mountain
By Mark Silk — April 25, 2010
He didn’t make it there during the presidential campaign, so Barack Obama stopped off to pay his respects to the aged evangelist on his circuitous way to deliver a eulogy for those 29 dead coal miners in Beckley, West Virginia. The question is whether the president was ambushed by Billy’s son Franklin, who turned up […]
Aggiornamento, 21st century style
By Mark Silk — April 25, 2010
Sometimes you’ve got to hand it to the Vatican. Here’s what its spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said in Rome yesterday: This is the age of truth, transparency and credibility. Secrecy and discretion, even in their positive aspects, are not values cultivated in contemporary society. We must be in a position to have nothing to […]
National Prayer Daze
By Mark Silk — April 23, 2010
No, Virginia, I’m afraid the National Day of Prayer ain’t constitutional, at least if you take the Supreme Court’s Establishment Clause jurisprudence at all seriously. Last week’s decision by U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Crabb in Freedom from Religion Foundation v. Obama is one of those clear, reasonable, precedent-based judicial exercises that drives experienced church-state […]
It’s the hierarchy, stupid!
By Mark Silk — April 22, 2010
Anyone who paid the least attention to the 2002-03 chapter of the running (25 years and counting) Catholic sexual abuse crisis knows that the easy part for the Church’s powers-that-be was the “protect the kids from now on” part. The hard part was calling to account the parties responsible for what actually upset people the […]
Poor Church of England
By Mark Silk — April 22, 2010
If you think the pope’s got problems, consider the Archbishop of Canterbury. As pictured by Jane Kramer in the current New Yorker, Rowan Williams is a very smart, eirenic soul with a job that only a Machiavelli would have a chance of carrying off. As the worldwide Anglican Communion continues its civil war over homosexuality, […]
Papalism
By Mark Silk — April 21, 2010
On its website, the Diocese of Greensburg, Pa. is currently promoting foryourvocations.org, a USCCB website to be launched on the World Day of Prayer for Vocations this Sunday. The diocese will not, however, be praying for vocations to the Sisters of St. Joseph of Baden. Once a major supplier of teachers and health care workers […]
Back on the Grid
By Mark Silk — April 20, 2010
And I’ve discovered that a volcano in Iceland has been blown up as part of a plot by Xenu to keep European thetans from ever getting clear. Because Europe has been so hostile to Scientology that even the thetans are bad. Can this be true? Have I been dreaming? Have got to catch up…
