In All Things

Dietrich Bonhoeffer remarked in his famous prison letters about his gratitude for life among prisoners who were not pious noting his surprise at what life was like with them In a very different context I too have found compelling the desacralized spaces of secular culture In rock culture

One of the many deeply disturbing aspects of the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church has been the lack of discussion about penance nbsp While public apologies from bishops who protected abusive priests are becoming more common doing penance to atone for individual sins is still too rare n

Father Martin has already called attention to an article in yesterday rsquo s New York Times by Nicholas Kristof although it is a mystery to me why Father applied the adjective excellent to it I found the article literally dripping in the kind of misplaced moral and intellectual superiority to wh

Uplifting news from Malta where Pope Benedict recently concluded his visit by a surprise private meeting with eight clerical sex abuse victims A Vatican statement said the Pope was deeply moved by their stories and expressed his shame and sorrow over what victims and their families have

Recently I came home to hear my four year old daughter listening to a CD which has entranced her making her memorize words melodies song order It turns out she is also memorizing poetry A relative bought for her the new Natalie Merchant record Leave Your Sleep Music critic Jon Pareles

Two excellent articles in the Sunday papers today shed light rather than heat on the sexual abuse crisis nbsp First off David Gibson has a terrific piece in the Washington Post entitled Five Myths about the Catholic sexual abuse scandal nbsp The myths are 1 Pope Benedict is the primary culpr

Speaking on NPR s Weekend Edition with Scott Simon on the need for penance and some of the causes of the sexual abuse crisis nbsp Weekend Edition is one of the sanest places to discuss these issues I think nbsp The link to NPR is here

Normally the charge of lunacy is a bit ad hominem for these pages But what if the charge of lunacy is actually exculpatory like a plea of temporary insanity at a murder trial I raise the issue because a large number of Tea Party folk who descended upon Washington yesterday to commemorate tax d

Pope Benedict XVI – Catholics like me have been insisting these past weeks on TV and radio – is a key part of the solution to the clerical sexual abuse crisis which is why the media attempt to scapegoat him is so misguided Indeed what has surfaced from the recent firestorm is how providential it

President Obama amplifying remarks of former Secretaty of State Condolezza Rice during the Bush administration and more recently by Vice President Biden and CENTCOM s General David Petreaus said something out loud that appears radical but is actually rather obvious resolving the long-running Mid