Analysis

“Fair-Minded Words”?

May 13, 2011 George Neumayr 0

On May 17, Notre Dame conferred upon Barack Obama an honorary law degree even as the US president geared up to pass more laws that would violate fundamental moral teachings of the Church. Thunderous applause […]

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Editorial

Bishop Martino’s Resignation

May 12, 2011 George Neumayr 0

The news of August contained two revealing illustrations of Church politics in America: the early and unusual resignation of a bishop known for defending orthodoxy and an elaborate Catholic funeral in honor of a senator […]

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Editorial

Barack Obama at the Vatican

May 12, 2011 George Neumayr 0

As a senator, Barack Obama received a 100 percent voting rating from the National Abortion Rights Action League. The Catholic Church gives no such rating to politicians, but if one were to construct a similar […]

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Editorial

Pilgrim’s Regress

May 12, 2011 George Neumayr 0

It sounds like an over-the-top Tom Wolfe novel: a successor to the apostles conducts an affair with a male graduate student, is accused of “date rape” and emotional harm by said student, raids the collection […]

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Editorial

Sister Johnson’s God

May 12, 2011 George Neumayr 0

In late March, the doctrinal committee of the US bishops’ conference warned the faithful about a book by Fordham University theologian Sister Elizabeth Johnson, Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of […]

Interview

A Window on the transcendent

May 11, 2011 George Neumayr 0

On November 29, the record label Geffen/Universal will release “Alma Mater (Music from the Vatican),” which features the voice of Pope Benedict XVI “reciting and singing passages and prayers, accompanied by the Choir of the […]

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Editorial

A Prophetic Force or Echo Chamber?

May 11, 2011 George Neumayr 0

“Bishop decries ‘combative tactics’ of a minority of US bishops,” ran a headline in the National Catholic Reporter, a newspaper known for its own combative tactics. A bishop who gives an interview to the proudly […]

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Editorial

Into the Deep Sea of History

May 10, 2011 George Neumayr 0

According to his critics, Pope Benedict XVI’s papacy would alienate, not attract, be rigid, not flexible. But as he presides over an imaginative papacy of growing Christian unity, their predictions fall away. Unable to compute […]

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Editorial

The Separation of God from State

May 10, 2011 George Neumayr 0

Secularists complain about the Church’s influence over government even as they seek to influence the Church’s internal governance. Witness their attacks on Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence for merely informing Congressman Patrick Kennedy that he […]

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Editorial

“Pseudo-Pastoral Claims”

May 9, 2011 George Neumayr 3

As dust collected on copies of canon law in chanceries after Vatican II, scandals multiplied—grim proof that the widespread indifference to canon law reflected not the presence of “pastoral” concern but its absence. Even at […]