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Would religious thinkers in times before the Scientific Revolution ever have considered accepting the word of scientists over a plain reading of the Bible? Yes, they would have. And, in fact, they did. St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and John Calvin all took the words of astronomers over a plain reading of Genesis 1:14–16. All three argued for interpreting these scriptural verses in light of what science had discovered and therefore held those verses to be describing celestial bodies not as they are in themselves, but as they appear to human eyes. Genesis 1:14–16 describes the creation of the Sun, Moon, and stars: And God said: Let there be lights made in the firmament of heaven, to divide the day and the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years: To shin...

Hey sports fans, Today is the feast of St. Cecilia, and you’re reading The Tuesday Pillar Post. There’s a lot to say about St. Cecilia, but I’d like to tell you about her basketball gym, on Detroit’s west side. In the summer of 1967, a riot spread across urban Detroit, leaving 43 people dead, more than 7,000 arrested, and hundreds of buildings – entire neighborhoods, nearly – destroyed by fire. The riots exploded after decades of housing, policing, employment, and educational discrimination in Detroit. They were set off on a hot summer night in late July, after police raided an unlicensed bar and arrested more than 80 people celebrating the return of soldiers from Vietnam. An onlooker threw a bottle at a police officer, looting began, and soon there were clashes between police ...

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio – articles – email ) | Nov 22, 2022 It concerns me that we seem so often tempted by the US Constitution to try to protect ourselves against patent injustice by invoking the claims of religious liberty. In his recent post on the Respect for Marriage Act, A Congressional assault on religious freedom, Phil Lawler cited and concurred with Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s statement that, as written, it appears that the Act will be interpreted to trump the religious liberty of those whose religions hold that marriage can only be a union between one man and one woman. In that sense, as Phil’s title indicates, the Act is an assault on religious freedom. Both Cardinal Dolan and Phil Lawler are correct; I certainly do not disagree. My problem is that neither am I very fon...

“Tenderness,” said Flannery O’Connor, when it is cut off from the person of Christ, “is wrapped in theory. When tenderness is detached from the source of tenderness, its logical outcome is terror. It ends in forced labor camps and in the fumes of the gas chamber.” Surely, tender Americans who shrug Jesus away, with His immeasurable mercy and His immovable assertion of the truth, will never fall into the ghastly hygiene of the Germans who murdered hundreds of Jews at a time by Zyklon gas coming through the shower heads, or into the political cruelty of the Russian gulags, where, as amenities, you got fly-ridden pots of thin slop to eat from and a small daily square of cardboard to clean yourself with at the privy. And this is true, sort of. It’s not in the American style. Nor in the Canadia...

By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky ( bio – articles – email ) | Nov 21, 2022 We spend much of our lives avoiding conflict if we can, a noble aspiration. We settle family disputes, avoid war, and hope for reconciliation within and among nations. The manic-depressive election cycles drive us crazy. Pharmaceutical companies promise to eliminate pain and extend our lives. Are we hard-wired for perpetual turmoil? Or is there a cure for our restlessness? Perhaps an old sci-fi film will help us begin to place human conflict into perspective. In the 1957 film The Incredible Shrinking Man, the main character, Scott, is on vacation with his wife. A strange mist covers him, and six months later, Scott notices his clothes are too large. He is shrinking. Scott’s steady decrease makes him a nationa...