A very wise Trappist monk once told me that unless everyone gets to heaven, no one will. It’s this sense of mutual responsibility — fundamental to the Judeo-Christian tradition — that President Obama needs to emphasize now. It seems far-fetched, from my perspective, to think that God should have any opinion at all about contraceptive technology, let alone about which […]
How Obama should fight the ‘war on religion’ Read More
That Justice Antonin Scalia believes in execution as a moral form of punishment is a well-known fact. That he is an observant, traditional Roman Catholic is, similarly, well-known. That he appears to believe his church supports the death penalty and that he’s willing to stake his job on that conviction is nothing short of astonishing. But there it is: “If I thought
Justice Scalia speaks for himself on death penalty, not the Catholic Church Read More
Let’s hear it for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. I’m not even remotely joking. Catholic bishops, both in the U.S. and abroad, have taken a justified beating in the press of late (including in this magazine) over their defensive and self-serving efforts to explain the Vatican hierarchy’s role in the sex-abuse crisis that continues to roil Europe. But,
Catholic Bishops Get It Right on Immigration Read More
Response to my April 12 article “A Woman’s Place Is in the Church” was overwhelming. Maureen Dowd cited it in her New York Times column. Sister Mary Ann Walsh, director of media relations for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, critiqued it in an op-ed. But one of the questions most often asked in e-mails from readers concerned the last
The Vanishing Role of Women in Church Readings Read More
We suffer, this week, from a moral myopia. Thanks to the passage in Congress of a health-reform bill, abortion is in the news again, but with the same old warriors brandishing their same old spears. Kate Michelman and Frances Kissling talk about how the current version of the health-care bill “risks the well-being of millions of women for generations to
Health Care: Abortion Is Not the Only Moral Issue Read More
On Nov. 14, in the enormous ballroom of the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront hotel, hundreds of black-clad bishops were called to prayer-and then they got down to business. After a long debate, 221 of 224 members of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops approved the document, called “Faithful Citizenship.” The goal: to encourage American Catholics to use their faith as
Campaign Soul Searching Read More