Opinion
Stemming the opposition
By Mark Silk — March 8, 2009
For the third time, the Obama White House has taken the quiet approach to hot-button Life Issue by making its intentions known late of a Friday afternoon. On January 23, there was its decision to reverse the so-called Mexico City policy of not funding international agencies that provide abortions or information on obtaining them. On […]
The Empire Strikes Back
By Mark Silk — March 6, 2009
David Gibson had a good post yesterday on Kansas City Archbishop Joseph Naumann’s campaign against his parishioner Kathleen Sebelius’ confirmation as secretary of HHS. And today Dan Gilgoff weighs in with an interview with Deal Hudson, who for a while ran Catholic outreach in the 2004 Bush campaign. Hudson makes an interesting admission about the […]
ARIS 2008 on the way
By Mark Silk — March 6, 2009
We’re busy getting ready for the roll-out of the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey. Conducted between February and November of last year, ARIS 2008 is the third in a landmark series of large, nationally representative surveys of U.S. adults in the 48 contiguous states conducted by my colleagues Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar. Employing the […]
COMMENTARY: Indecent proposal
By Tracy Gordon — March 5, 2009
(UNDATED) Last week, a suspect was arrested in New York for fatally beating an immigrant. As the 28-year-old suspect confessed, he made this chilling comment: “So I killed someone; that makes me a bad guy?” Is such moral obtuseness a limited occurrence, or is it symptomatic of a societal disease cultivated by our age? As […]
Limbaughism
By Mark Silk — March 5, 2009
Since Ronald Reagan, Republicans have thought of themselves as residing on a three-legged stool. In Reagan’s day it was free-market economics, a strong defense, and family values. More recently it has been free-market economics, a liberationist foreign policy, and religion. But however formulated, the ascendancy of Rush Limbaugh points to the collapse of the latter […]
COMMENTARY: Leaning in the right direction
By Cathleen Falsani — March 4, 2009
(UNDATED) One recent snowy Friday night, rather than watch a movie or slug about the house, I decided to do something new and, hopefully, constructive. That’s how I wound up lying on the floor in a candlelit yoga studio, listening to gong music and chanting for prosperity. Technically speaking, I was experiencing a “gong bath,” […]
Thought for the day
By Mark Silk — March 4, 2009
Rick Warren, the new Big Dog of American religion, seems to have dropped out of sight since the Inauguration. Does he have any considered opinions on his friend Barack Obama’s efforts to rescue the economy, first steps in foreign policy, or (drum roll) remixed faith-based initiative and designation of Kathleen Sebelius as HHS secretary? Who […]
The Mahony Gambit
By Mark Silk — March 4, 2009
Yesterday’s decision by Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony to ban Holocaust-denying SSPX bishop Richard Williamson from setting foot in any Catholic church in his archdiocese (announced in a joint letter with two American Jewish Committee officials and published in the archdiocesan and local Jewish papers, h/t Paulson) in effect re-excommunicates Williamson within one cardinal’s jurisdiction. […]
COMMENTARY: The faith to weather discomfort
By Tom Ehrich — March 3, 2009
(UNDATED) As the recession’s hardship spreads, faith communities face not only extreme budget pressure but a crisis of purpose and identity. For one thing, congregations aren’t being spared. Endowments are shrinking, as are those of other not-for-profits. Congregations weren’t even exempted from scams. Their members face the same layoffs, salary-cutting and factory closings as other […]
Multivalent
By Mark Silk — March 3, 2009
I like it. The red, the white, the blue, the green. The flag thing. The plant thing. The manufacturing cogs thing. But, uh, what about that cross? OK, it’s maybe where the big cog sits on whatever it is that it sits on. But it’s also a Red Cross. RX for the economy? Money transfusion […]
What Chuck has to offer
By Mark Silk — March 3, 2009
Colson really really wants to be able to hire only his own kind, with government money. Christ is all he’s got to offer, sezee. Your tax dollars at work? See Gilgoff’s report.
Sebelius Rivalry
By Mark Silk — March 3, 2009
You’ve got your Bill Donohues, calling HHS secretary designate Kahleen Sebelius “one of the most extreme pro-abortion zealots in the nation.” But then you’ve your Catholics for Sebelius (including Cahill, Hollenbach, Kmiec, and Reese) making the case that she represents the new approach to to abortion reduction. On the evangelical side, you’ve got your Family […]
CPAC hearts Huck not
By Mark Silk — March 2, 2009
Maybe I’m missing something here, but I find it noteworthy that Mike Huckabee only managed 7 percent in the CPAC straw poll, coming in sixth behind Romney, Jindal, Paul, Palin, and Gingrich. Sure, Huck had to split the social conservative vote with Jindal and Palin, but those two didn’t even show up for the event. […]
Whither common ground?
By Mark Silk — March 2, 2009
President Obama’s choice of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as HHS secretary is a poke in the eye of pro-lifers, and they are reacting accordingly. Bad enough that she’s a pro-choice Catholic, but as governor of a pretty pro-life state, she’s regularly vetoed legislation that would make it more difficult for women to obtain abortions. Such […]
No radical break
By Mark Silk — March 1, 2009
The main thing wrong with Susan Jacoby’s broadside against faith-based initiatives is that, when it comes to the history of faith-based social service provision in America, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. At the top, she asks: Who anymore can imagine that the United States managed to exist for over 200 years without the […]
