Author: S&P
A rumble Down Under, a halftime report, and number and lies…
Happy Friday friends, And a happy feast of St. Cilian, the seventh century Irish missionary bishop who, like so many of his countrymen, made valiant and not always terribly successful efforts to civilize and Christianize the Hun. Cilian’s assigned patch was Franconia, in what is now northern Bavaria. His preaching in Würzburg won over Gozbert, the local duke, to the Gospel. Things went a lit...
Holy laity make holy bishops…
It is said that when St. Martin of Tours was acclaimed a bishop, he fled the crowd and hid in a barn full of geese. (It was only the honking of an angry gander that gave him away.) That’s the correct response to being made a bishop. It’s a terrible job. With one or two exceptions, the first 13 were martyred. And death is really the least of a bishop’s worries. When he appears before the Jud...
New exhibit lets you see the Sistine Chapel up close, in America — and on a budget…
This summer, the “Creation of Adam,” one of the Vatican’s most extraordinary works of art, is leaving Rome—sort of. A traveling exhibition that showcases high definition photographs of Michelangelo’s 34 frescoes is visiting several cities in the continental United States. The exhibit, called “Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel,” is touring North America, with stops planned in Portland, Indianapolis and...
Pope’s Sunday Angelus: ‘Pray to See Others as God Sees Them’…
He explained that we must acknowledge when we have been indifferent towards the needs of others. “Let us ask the Lord,” he said, “to help us overcome our selfish indifference and put ourselves on the Way.” The pope said the first Christians were called “disciples of the Way,” because they followed Jesus Christ, who is “the way, and the truth, and the life.” As Christian believers, Francis said, we...
The unbreakable rules of the Chicago dog — and when to bend them…
People will tell you that the one unbreakable rule of a true Chicago-style hot dog is that it should never, ever have ketchup on it. No ketchup on the premises, within a city block, within nineteen miles—no ketchup even by the existentially accommodating standards of a Noël Coward Martini, wherein a glass of gin is waved in the general direction of Italy. I tell you this as a born-and-bred Chicago...
5 unexpected ways coffee influences your behavior…
Everyone knows that coffee perks up the soul. Shortly after the nectar passes our lips, our brain is attentive, our vision sharpens and fatigue goes away. As French novelist Honoré de Balzac states, “This coffee falls into your stomach, and straightway there is a general commotion. Ideas begin to move like the battalions of the Grand Army on the battlefield.” Caffeine is the primary chemical in co...
You aren’t the one being judged…
Recently, I had a conversation with the mother of several young children. She relayed that she was hesitant to visit some of her extended family because of the negative opinions that are sometimes offered to her about her decision to have “so many” children. “I just don’t like being judged,” she said. I knew exactly what she meant, but I wanted to let her in on the secret to these judgements that ...
The trilemma of C.S. Lewis: Is there evidence that Jesus ever lived?
Employing an argument popularized by C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, Christian apologists often point out that there are only three basic possibilities about Jesus. In claiming He was God, Jesus was either: 1) a liar, 2) insane, or 3) God. This is sometimes referred to as “Lewis’s Trilemma.” Lewis’s observation is not only logical but universally applicable, meaning that anyone who claims to be G...
The lessons of Russian warmaking…
CRACOW. Four and a half months after Russia invaded Ukraine on the Orwellian pretext of displacing a “Nazi” regime — a regime that enjoys a democratic legitimacy absent from Russia for two decades — what have we learned about, and from, the Russian way of war? We have learned that the Russian way of war is inept strategically, tactically and logistically: an army using inferior equipment, bereft o...
What does it mean when someone accuses others of ‘rejecting Vatican II?’…
Pope Francis has repeatedly called attention to what he views as a growing rejection of the Second Vatican Council. Speaking to editors of European Jesuit journals on May 19, he related this view: “It is very difficult to see spiritual renewal using old-fashioned criteria. We need to renew our way of seeing reality, of evaluating it … Restorationism has come to gag the Council. The number of group...
God made Catholicism a businesslike religion…
“The outside observer is apt to conceive of Catholicism as at least a business-like religion,” wrote Ronald Knox in his classic The Belief of Catholics. Knox was a Catholic C.S. Lewis, as smart as Lewis but I think cleverer, with a gift equal to his for popular writing. And, as a Catholic, writing from a deeper and wider and truer understanding of things than Lewis had. Knox entered the Cat...
How will we know if we’re in a recession? These are the most important indicators economists and forecasters are watching…..
A growing number of economists predict that the United States is headed for a recession in the next year. Polls have found that some Americans believe we’re already in one. But regardless of the dim forecasts and souring mood among Americans, it could take a while before we actually know if and when the country has tipped into a recession. “By the time a recession is officially called, we’ll be ei...
