Columns
Purity, Republican style
By Mark Silk — November 24, 2009
The NYT’s Adam Nagourney has been all over the story of a proposed list of 10 GOP commandments that if you only violate two of them, you’re still a Republican in good standing. The list, which will be presented to the RNC for its approval, is apparently the brainchild of James Bopp, Jr., an RNC […]
Yiddish Policemen for Palin?
By Mark Silk — November 23, 2009
For a few days I’ve been meditating on Sarah Palin’s remark to Barbara Walters, explaining why she opposes the Obama administration’s opposition to expansion of Israeli settlements on the West Bank. It’s because, according to Palin, “more and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead.” This […]
Tobin v. Kennedy, round 2
By Mark Silk — November 23, 2009
Apart from that little health care vote in the House of Representatives, the biggest political news over the weekend was the latest back-and-forth between Bishop Thomas Joseph Tobin of Providence and Rep. Patrick Joseph Kennedy (D-RI) over the congressman’s standing in the Catholic Church. On Friday, Kennedy told the Providence Journal-Bulletin that Tobin had “instructed […]
The Relics of Santo Galileo
By Mark Silk — November 21, 2009
Who knew? In 1737, when the remains of Galileo were being translated to the monumental tomb across from Michelangelo’s in Santa Croce Basilica in Florence, some admirers made off with three fingers, a tooth, and the fifth lumbar vertebra, of which the tooth and two fingers were lost, and now they are found. The recovered […]
What do you mean “we,” Manhattan Declaration signers?
By Mark Silk — November 20, 2009
The Manhattan Declaration, the conservative Christian manifesto nailed (metaphorically) with great fanfare to the door of the National Press Club today, ends with this orotund pronunciamento: Because we honor justice and the common good, we will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide […]
The Mouse Roars
By Mark Silk — November 20, 2009
Speaking at an ecumenical meeting in Rome yesterday prior to meeting with the pope today, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams threw down a theological gauntlet to Roman Catholics who regard things like papal primacy and the ordination of women as fundamental obstacles to ecumenical progress. Rather cleverly, Williams used the divided Anglican Communion as a […]
Bishops react
By Mark Silk — November 19, 2009
In his RNS report yesterday, Dan Burke got a couple if bishops to comment on the John Jay study de-coupling clerical homosexuality from sexual abuse. Most notable was St. Paul-Minneapolis Archbishop John Nienstedt’s “I wouldn’t put a lot of credence in it.” Nienstedt, as Burke notes, was the guy who led the Vatican’s post-scandal investigation […]
Priesthood as Prison
By Mark Silk — November 18, 2009
Gibson reports on latest from the clergy sex abuse study by the folks at John Jay, presented to the USCCB yesterday: “What we are suggesting is that the idea of sexual identity be separated from the problem of sexual abuse,” said Margaret Smith, a researcher from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New […]
Marriage-olatry
By Mark Silk — November 18, 2009
Before he became Pope Innocent III in 1198, Lotario dei Conti of Segni wrote De quadripartita specie nuptiarum, a treatise defining marriage as a four-part thing according to the four ways that Parisian scholastics of the day interpreted Scripture: historical, allegorical, tropological, and anagogical. According to Lotario, the “historical” was the carnal marriage of man […]
Wallisite Common Ground
By Mark Silk — November 17, 2009
Jim Wallis’ endless apologia pro Stupakia sua on Huffpost is an awe-inspiring exercise in injured innocence. According to him, the collapse of a compromise on abortion in the House health care bill was all the fault of the House leadership (which disrespected pro-life moderates) and pro-choice activists (who just couldn’t see past their zealotry). Were […]
No faith-based hiring with public funds
By Mark Silk — November 16, 2009
Pew has a new study out on faith-based social service provision, and the striking news is that, although Americans continue to support (by wide margins) allowing faith-based groups to apply for government funding, they remain very separationist in how they want those groups to behave. Thus, by a 68-27 margin they believe “religious charities” should […]
Stupak lite
By Mark Silk — November 16, 2009
Sean Michael Winters, fighting the good fight at the USCCB. Good luck with that, SMW. I’ll believe it when I see it.
Hasan and the FBI
By Mark Silk — November 16, 2009
If the extraordinary interview-by-proxy of radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi in today’s WaPo is to be believed, accused Ford Hood murderer Nidal Malik Hasan made contact with him last December, and emails between the two followed from there–including “two or three” responses from al-Aulaqi. The Yemeni journalist who conducted the interview–a man with close ties […]
How about “Going Religious”?
By Mark Silk — November 14, 2009
A week ago, over at the Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg chastised his fellow Atlantians for the sin of political correctness in not identifying alleged Fort Hood murderer Major Nidal Hasan as the Muslim jihadi Goldberg takes him to be. A double standard, he claimed, is at work here: “elite makers of opinion in this country try […]
Rodriguez hearts Hagee
By Mark Silk — November 13, 2009
Yesterday, JTA reported that Samuel Rodriguez’s National Hispanic Christian Leadership NHCL) Conference is joining forces with John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel to express their common love for, well, Israel. Over at Talk to Action, the ever-vigilant Bruce Wilson rings the theo-political changes on the alliance, but misses the key link–which Hagee himself provides in […]
