Just saw this one for the first time, courtesy of Mr. Hannan. I'm going to have to chew on this analysis for a while and see what I think. But it struck me that it may make for a good "discuss with students" article for some further, future incarnation of my Grace course, particularly once the students are advanced enough to start thinking ( Read more... )

Today marks the 50th Anniversary of the Opening of the Second Vatican Council, an event that has rightly been called the major religious event of the 20th century, and which went a long way to restoring the thriving diversity of the ancient and medieval periods to the life of the Church, which was increasingly mired in early modern political forms ( Read more... )

Going over the biographical essay in the draft for my book, adapting and expanding upon the work I did in the dissertation. I see that the question of the local church - the local church and the regional church - needed more attention than it received at Vatican II, according to Sullivan. Certainly a problem in the Catholic Church is excessive ( Read more... )

GOODBYE A MARTINI
"Church back 200 years"
The last interview: "Why do not you shake because we are afraid?"

Fr. Georg Sporschill, a fellow Jesuit who interviewed him in Conversations night in Jerusalem and met Federica Root Martini on 8 August: "A sort of spiritual testament. Cardinal Martini has read and approved the text. "

How do you see the ( Read more... )

How Google and Apple's digital mapping is mapping us
Digital maps on smartphones are brilliantly useful tools, but what sort of information do they gather about us - and how do they shape the way we look at the world?Oliver Burkeman ( Read more... )

Been reading Rowan Williams, now finishing up his time as Archbishop of Canterbury, and about him. Wanted to jot a few passages down, such as this precise critique of the anthropological assumptions underlying peace movements (and the political and cultural Left more broadly, perhaps?) since the 1960s: When, in the late sixties and early seventies ( Read more... )

I was honestly a bit surprised to find such a blunt appraisal in the New York Times this week. I've long been concerned by the destruction of diversity in the American religious sphere represented by the destruction of liberal Christianity, but it seemed to be impossible to convince such people that they had left the liberalism of the Niebuhrs, or ( Read more... )

The Last Marranos: Examining 20th Century Jewish Converts to Christianity in Light of the Holocaust
Yaël Hirsch, PhD (Sciences-po, Paris) (the Paris Institute of Political Studies)Loyola University New Orleans, Thursday 2 February 2012 ( Read more... )

Just wanted to copy a few columns or articles into the journal here. It has been interesting to watch this debate about ethics itself that's been happening in the UK since the riots. The number of writers drawing attention to the idea of public morality itself is interesting, particularly in a world of post-modern assumptions or dogma, where one ( Read more... )

In talking about strange specifics of American Christianity with my students, I have to say that few things boggle me as much as the sorts of predictions like today's confident end-of-the-world announcement by Harold Camping, a California preacher whose prediction has been taken up with great hilarity by media outlets and people around the world. ( Read more... )