January 2006
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The Social Justice Challenge One of the unhappy effects of the attack from within the Church itself on Catholic doctrine is a tendency for the orthodox to be almost as much occupied with preserving the faith as with practicing it. I think it is becoming possible for us to move past this, now that the…
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This Culture is Ugly: Dark Thoughts on Roe Day Many years ago I heard attributed to an Episcopal seminary professor the observation that Americans have a difficult time dealing with the Christian concept of sin, because we want to believe that “if it’s a sin you ought to stop doing it, and if you can’t…
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Report from the Hurricane Coast I made an overnight visit to New Orleans this weekend, and it left me wondering whether the city can ever recover fully. What struck me most forcefully there was not the physical damage done by hurricane Katrina, for which I was more or less prepared, but the fact that, as…
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On the Last Day of Christmas The actual last day of Christmas was, of course, a couple of days ago in the Western calendar, on December 6 (or December 5th—there seem to be different approaches to the counting). But the Feast of the Epiphany has been moved to the nearest Sunday, or however the rule…
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Common Courtesy and the Christmas Wars I hope it’s not just my subjective impression that some of the intensity faded from the struggle over public expression of Christmas this year. Over the past few years it had come to be, in some circles, a major breach of etiquette to wish someone “Merry Christmas.” I noticed…
Light On Dark Water 