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Senator Joe McCarthy’s controversial Catholic faith…
History is dead-on in its verdict that Senator Joe McCarthy’s Catholic faith played a defining role in his life and his crusade against Communism. But it did not happen quite the way historians have told us. For the real story, we need to go back to the senator’s beginnings. His personal and professional papers were made available exclusively to me and I have used them in my new book, Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy. McCarthy’s grandfather, Stephen Patrick McCarthy, established the family’s foothold in the United States in the mid-1800s. A native of Ireland, Stephen made his way to Wisconsin’s Fox River Valley, where farmland was so cheap he could buy 160 acres for $600. The pioneer in him would have found this untamed hinterland of waterfowl and white bass more...
5 tips from St. Benedict on engaging online — because we’ll get nowhere by daily riding each other’s backs…
Original sin has rendered our world an ever-contentious place, but for many who remember the late 1960s, the Year of Our Lord 2020 seems (largely thanks to the internet, social media, twenty-four-hour news channels) like a banner year—a David Banner year, furious and destructive—like 1968 on steroids. It’s brought us to a place were dialogue is strained, where people are reacting-at each other, rather than responding-to. Particularly on social media where—thanks to a virus that won’t seem to quit—many of us are doing the bulk of our talking, people are snarling, going for the ad hominem early and often, and tossing labels about with reckless abandon. It’s easy to do this on social media; we sit behind screens that block us off from anything but the words before our eyes and then forget tha...
“I think of Hagia Sophia, and I am very saddened” — Pope speaks out on Turkey’s mosque ruling…
Vatican City, Jul 12, 2020 / 04:50 am MT (CNA).- Pope Francis expressed his sadness Sunday after Turkey’s decision to convert the former Byzantine cathedral of Hagia Sophia back into a mosque. In improvised remarks after reciting the Angelus, the pope recalled that July 12 is Sea Sunday, when the worldwide Church prays for seafarers. “And the sea carries me a little farther away in my thoughts: to Istanbul. I think of Hagia Sophia, and I am very saddened,” he said, according to an unofficial translation provided by the Holy See Press Office. The pope appeared to be referring to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s decision to sign a decree July 10 turning the sixth-century edifice into an Islamic place of worship. The presidential decree was signed within hours of a court ruling ...
Why I’ve come to favor Holy Communion kneeling and on the tongue…
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4 kinds of slavery the Civil War didn’t end: Slavery to passion, fashion, custom, and error…
The bad news is that the Civil War did not put an end to slavery. Sure, the Civil War did end the apparent and visible slavery that made legal the ownership of human beings by other human beings, whereby the owners could wring their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces. And whatever one thinks about the causes of the North and the South, and the means employed, and the tremendous and appalling loss of life that ensued, every thinking American is just glad that the institution of slavery was abolished. The physical form of slavery (that has marred human history from seemingly the beginning) does not lay claim to the inner life of the human being. The human spirit is not able to be coerced by chains or whips no matter how brutal – at least if we are to believe the testimony of those tha...
The New York Times says COVID-19 is ‘surging’ through churches — as opposed to bars, marches, stores, etc…
<div class="sqs-block embed-block sqs-block-embed" data-block-json="{"cache_age":"3153600000","authorUrl":"https://twitter.com/nycreligioninfo","width":550,"height":null,"hSize":null,"resolveObject":"Tweet","html":" The NY Times falsely claims that Churches Are a Major Source of Coronavirus Cases. The article is good roundup of 650 cases, a small fraction of even daily cases. Does the screaming headline inflame anti-religious bigotry? https://t.co/4t3ZUBJKBC \u2014 nycreligion.info (@nycreligioninfo) July 8, 2020 \n","url":"https://twitter.com/nycreligioninfo/status/1280831188979060736?s=12","resolvedBy":"twitter","floa...
On race, COVID and just about everything else…
Here is a recent interview I did with Simone Rizkallah of Endow. It began as a discussion on race and COVID and expanded from there. I really enjoyed our conversation which was wide ranging and personal. [embedded content]
Does it matter that journalists have quit asking about the missing McCarrick report?
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San Gabriel, California mission founded by St. Junípero Serra, burns in overnight fire…
CNA Staff, Jul 11, 2020 / 12:40 pm MT (CNA).- A massive fire devastated an eighteenth century mission church in San Gabriel, in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, July 11. Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles called the fire at San Gabriel Mission church, founded by St. Junipero Serra, “devastating.” The fire began early Saturday morning around 4 a.m. and destroyed the roof and interior of the 249-year-old structure. Local firefighters said they responded to an initial alarm at 4:24. By the time they arrived, smoke and flames were visible from outside the church – which is a California Historical Landmark. Our beloved #SanGabrielMission, founded in 1771, devastated by fire before dawn. St. Junípero Serra, pray for this land that you helped to found. pic.twitter.com/aX0X4qCvJ7...
Why didn’t the Spanish colonies in America become a single country like the United States did?
[embedded content] The colonies of Spain spanned most of the Americas, yet for some reason they became a hodgepodge of independent countries, rather than a federal union like the United States. So, what prevented the emergence of a Spanish American Union?
This enhanced footage of Apollo 16 will make you feel like you’re on the Moon with the astronauts…
[embedded content] This Apollo 16 Rover traverse to Station 4 was filmed in 16mm, color-corrected, and interpolated from 12 to 60 frames per second.
Survey finds 30% of German Catholics are considering leaving Church…
CNA Staff, Jul 9, 2020 / 08:15 am MT (CNA).- A survey released Thursday found that 30% of German Catholics are considering leaving the Church. The poll, conducted by the research institute INSA Consulere for the Catholic weekly newspaper Die Tagespost, reported that almost a third of respondents agreed with the statement “I am a member of the Church and can imagine leaving the Church soon.” Researchers said July 9 that 54% of Catholics disagreed with the statement, 9% said they did not know, and 7% did not offer a response, CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner, reported. The survey follows the release of official figures last month which showed that a record number of Catholics formally left the Church in Germany in 2019. According to the statistics, 272,771 peo...
