The likely appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court may mark the end of this round of the culture wars. For half-a-century, the U.S. has been a battleground over “moral” and sexual values. Key issues like abortion, health care (i.e., the ADA), gay rights and the meaning of “family” have been contested. With Barrett’s appointment,…
On Aug. 26, during the Republican National Convention, Vice President Mike Pence closed out his acceptance speech with a biblical sleight of hand. Speaking before a crowd at the Fort McHenry National Monument in Baltimore, he exclaimed, “Let’s fix our eyes on Old Glory and all she represents. Let’s fix our eyes on this land of heroes…
The Christian Right is content to have the focus on Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett revolve around her opposition to abortion and membership in People of Praise, a far-right Catholic cult that practices “speaking in tongues.” What it does not want examined is her abject subservience to corporate power, her hostility to workers, civil…
As a cradle Catholic and recipient of Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal, Joe Biden is outspoken in declaring that the principles and beliefs of his Catholic faith guide his public life. “Joe is a man of faith,” was a recurring theme at the Democratic convention that nominated him to become our second Catholic president. Biden has…
When the caustic Evelyn Waugh visited the majestic sixth century creation of Emperor Justinian, one subsequently enlarged, enriched and encrusted by various rulers, he felt underwhelmed. “‘Agia’ will always win the day for one,” he wrote of Istanbul’s holiest of holies, Hagia Sophia, in 1930. “A more recondite snobbism is to say ‘Aya Sofia’, but…
Turkey’s controversial decision to reconvert Hagia Sophia from a museum into a mosque has been met with sharp criticism abroad from those who claim that it’ll exacerbate the so-called “Clash of Civilizations” and reverse the secular reforms of Ataturk while supporters of this move claim that it’s a justified reassertion of civilizational identity in an…
