tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34539832011-04-21T16:04:33.044-04:00Praying the PostReading the newspaper with a cup of coffee in one hand and a rosary in the other.Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comBlogger421100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-79926672319863615942008-11-13T08:41:00.001-05:002008-11-13T08:41:56.593-05:00Lebens unwertes LebenDear Uncle Sam:We have some children we have no use for. We were going to incinerate them, but if you want to use them for medical experiements instead, that's fine with us.Sincerely,The ParentsThis tomorrow brought to you by Ronald M. Green, chair of the Ethics Advisory Board of Advanced Cell Technology.Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-1163496877553997772008-10-23T09:02:00.003-04:002008-10-23T09:05:33.978-04:00Not only can we say "both/and," it's our moral imperativeAs a Roman Catholic, I am disheartened to see the communications coordinator of a national Catholic social justice lobby miscommunicate Catholic doctrine on the single most important social justice issue of our time.Stephanie Niedringhaus of NETWORK writes, in a letter to the Washington Post:People of all political persuasions can agree on Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-1166627840337072682006-12-20T09:59:00.000-05:002006-12-20T10:17:20.350-05:00Commercial strength anti-Catholic bigotryNaked, unalloyed contempt for the Catholic faith, five days before Christmas.What makes this news? It's introduced into a column of naked, unalloyed contempt for conservative Episcopalians.Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-1145111215100038292006-04-15T09:55:00.000-04:002006-04-15T13:20:46.436-04:00Because Good Friday in Rome is all about secular AmericaHow can something be so unbelievable and so predictable at the same time?The front page of today's Post has a nice Reuters picture of Pope Benedict XVI from Good Friday's Celebration of the Passion of the Lord. This is the caption, adapted from a Reuters article written by Philip Pullella:Pope Benedict XVI presides over the ceremony of the Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-1132762265273507142005-11-23T11:10:00.000-05:002005-11-23T15:48:15.506-05:00Regarding the Post's editorial on torture:Yup.Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-1131118317584199352005-11-04T10:26:00.000-05:002005-11-04T10:31:57.593-05:00A bad idea from a bad novelEugene Robinson says it for me:Why does it matter how we treat a bunch of Islamic radicals who are sworn to bring death and destruction to the United States? It matters because the United States draws its strength and its moral authority in the world from its ideals. We preach about due process, we preach about the rule of law, we preach about humane treatment -- and Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-1114188216211475852005-04-22T12:43:00.000-04:002005-04-22T12:43:36.213-04:00Fundamentalism, American-styleDo you know what, according to Maryland NOW, women's most fundamental right is?You didn't guess, "The right to life," did you?In today's Post, there's a letter to the editor, set in its own box, with a nice big headline reading, "Endangering Women's Rights."It's a measure of how screwed up this country is that all the above is a clue that something good has Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-1112624914899008212005-04-04T10:16:00.000-04:002005-04-04T11:06:04.076-04:00Solipsism RampantThere is an unintentionally funny letter to the editor today, in response to the death of Pope John Paul II:Might we have a little reality in the midst of the hagiography? I am a middle-aged Roman Catholic who was extremely disappointed in Pope John Paul II. His stand on issues such as human sexuality, marriage for priests and the role of women set the church back decades. In Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-1111760606430658322005-03-25T09:20:00.000-05:002005-03-25T09:23:26.433-05:00Non sequiturFrom a Post article covering the Terri Schiavo case:The Schindlers had been hoping that Jeb Bush could save their daughter by presenting an affidavit from William P. Cheshire, a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., who says Schiavo may be in a "minimally conscious," rather than "vegetative," state, as court-appointed doctors believe.Cheshire has been a vocal critic ofTomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-1111509028521921012005-03-22T11:30:00.000-05:002005-03-30T08:59:58.883-05:00A child of SingerThe Washington Post ran a letter to the editor today from a Wisconsin neurologist, who makes several claims.PVS, or "cortical death," is the irreversible loss of the part of the brain controlling judgment and insight. Once cortical death occurs, personhood as we know it is gone.On this view, there is no such thing as "a person in a persistent vegetative state," since personhood Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-1107452661625305512005-02-03T13:44:00.000-05:002005-02-03T12:46:15.263-05:00What's in Style today
If you don't subscribe to The Washington Post, you might reasonably assume that the Post is the Post, and that a car review is as Posty, as "the other newspaper of record"y, as what appears on A-1 above the fold.
In fact, though, the "Style" section has entirely different standards than the news sections, which may be why Tina Brown's columns appear in "Style" rather than Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-1074868125327765972004-01-23T09:28:00.000-05:002004-01-23T09:36:22.356-05:00The wind shifts?
When I went to the Metro section page of the Post's website to get the link for the post below, this was the banner ad at the top of the page:
The name of the image is "stomach_hold_her_728x90.gif".
"She." "Her."
I suppose "Kate Michelman, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, a national abortion-rights group," would say it's a sad day for American women when we have peopleTomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-1074867780355899042004-01-23T09:23:00.000-05:002004-01-23T09:24:29.170-05:00Quiz Time
Suppose you are a photo editor with a major metropolitan newspaper. A news story about a controversial subject needs some photographs above the fold on the front page of the Metro section. The story reports that "Tens of thousands" on one side of the controversy marched through the streets, forming a parade that stretched through "several long blocks" of your city.
Those on the other Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-1068822266173118852003-11-14T10:04:00.000-05:002003-11-14T10:04:46.123-05:00Catholic and non-Catholic systems
There's an old (and not very funny) mathematics joke that to classify systems as either linear or non-linear makes about as much sense as classifying animals as either elephants or non-elephants. (See, almost all interesting systems are non-linear, and ... oh, never mind.)
If you want to talk sensibly about the Catholic Church, though, I think you really do Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-1060198577746438282003-08-06T15:36:00.000-04:002003-08-06T16:06:18.600-04:00A newsed features item
Caryle Murphy, a Post Metro staff/religion writer, made a peculiar slip in a newsless article published Monday titled, "Married Catholic Priests Still Committed to Calling." (I say "newsless" because there is nothing at all time-related in the article; it ran on page B-1, the front of the Metro section, and continued inside, with photographs on both pages.)
Murphy wrote:Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-935989822003-05-01T11:28:00.000-04:002003-05-01T11:28:38.313-04:00The good news
The Washington Archdiocese finally has a candidate for sainthood in Servant of God Mary Virginia Merrick, who founded the Christ Child Society in 1887 at the age of 21.
For most of her life, she could neither stand up not hold up her head.
She will make a palatable saint, I think. People can admire her work for needy children without troubling themselves with her personal Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-935937542003-05-01T09:47:00.000-04:002003-05-01T11:20:12.000-04:00Intolerance swaddled in punditry
I missed Richard Cohen's "Santorum is a moron" column the first time around, and it's probably not worth revisiting it.
Cohen, though, revisits the topic today, staking out a disturbing position.
He sets it up by portraying Senator Rick Santorum as the wicked inquisitor condemning St. JFK:... Kennedy not only said he believed that "the separation of church and Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-882081742003-01-29T10:36:00.000-05:002003-01-29T10:59:23.000-05:00A sop to the far left
In his review of the State of the Union speech, Tom Shales refers to what he saw as "a sop to the far right, a call for an end to 'partial-birth abortions.'"
Yes, Shales is a TV critic. (Just think about that for a moment. A grown man whose job is to write about what he sees on television.) As such, he should be treated more with compassion than with austerity.
But in a Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-879071192003-01-23T12:14:00.000-05:002003-01-24T11:56:21.000-05:00Making it count
There's not much more to say that isn't stunningly obvious about the Post's coverage of the March for Life, particularly in comparison with the anti-war rally.But I just want to tease one point a little, the question of numbers.
How many people marched against war on Saturday in Washington? "Tens of thousands," reported the Post.
How many people marched against legal abortion Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-879066682003-01-23T12:04:00.000-05:002003-01-23T12:06:11.000-05:00At least they're up front about their dishonesty
I sent this letter to Michael Getler, the Post's ombusdman:Dear Mr. Getler:
Yes, yes, another pro-life Washington Post subscriber writing to complain about the Post's coverage of the March for Life.
I was expecting to have to write you to ask about the editorial balance between the accomodating coverage of the anti-war rally Saturday (more than Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-877830962003-01-21T09:34:00.000-05:002003-01-21T09:40:59.000-05:00Maybe it's anti-semitism
Last May there was a report on anti-Catholicism in America, leaving some of us comfortable in the sentiment that anti-Catholicism is the anti-Semitism of the intellectuals.
This past Sunday, the Unconventional Wiz reported that anti-Semitism itself is on the rise:On question after question, researchers found that the proportion of Americans between the ages of 18 and 35Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-877826712003-01-21T09:25:00.000-05:002003-01-21T21:03:07.000-05:00Somewhere, a dog barked
Well, it's the day before the annual March for Life. No mention in the Post.
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-876382402003-01-18T09:27:00.000-05:002003-01-18T09:31:05.000-05:00That's rally something
The Post has almost 5,000 words of preview coverage on the "100,000 Expected to Protest Iraq War." (See also here and this washingtonpost.com report.)
That's fine. 100,000 people marching should be news for any city, and the threat of war is hardly a country club spat.
Let us see, then, how thoroughly the Post covers the 100,000 or 200,000 people in the March for Life Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-775279472002-06-09T08:42:00.000-04:002002-06-09T15:39:18.000-04:00More bad news?
The headline at the top of column 1 on page A-1 of Sunday's Post reads:
Hundreds Of Priests Removed Since '60sSurvey Shows Scope Wider Than Disclosed
Oh dear, even wider than the 1-2% of active priests that has been widely reported for several years?
It seems the Washington Post has done a survey of "each of the nation's 178 mainstream Roman Catholic dioceses." (Mainstream? As Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-773735172002-06-05T09:38:00.000-04:002002-06-05T10:07:56.000-04:00From the other side
Michael Kelly vents his irrepressible spleen at the bishop's draft charter, but he seems to make a common error.
He begins with a couple of concessions:First, it is not nothing. Second, realistically, it represents an attempt at probably necessary compromise....But then he moves to his principal objection:The third thing that may be said, though, is that this is, ultimately Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-771932222002-05-31T15:17:00.000-04:002002-05-31T16:12:14.000-04:00You say blas-phe-my, I say hy-per-du-li-a
To be honest, I think I've encountered a few Mary worshipers -- or at least people whose exaltation of Mary appears to be formally heretical -- in my web travels. But I believe most of the 83% of non-Catholic Americans who think Catholics worship Mary have in mind, not these few fringe folks, but the common or garden Catholic with a rosary on the dresserTomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-771930602002-05-31T15:12:00.000-04:002002-05-31T15:15:12.000-04:00A couple of words in response
Martin Roth has two questions:
1. Do Catholics worship Mary?
No.
2. Doesn’t ‘anti’ mean “opposed to” or “preventing”?
Yes.
I am always happy to be able to clear things up like this.
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-771427342002-05-30T11:02:00.000-04:002002-05-30T13:31:03.000-04:00Episode Umpteenth: Attack of the Cohens
Somehow, when I saw the title “Personhood in a Petri Dish,” and the byline “Richard Cohen,” I knew it would yield a Praying the Post entry.
Mr. Cohen does not display careful thought in this opinion piece.
How does he characterize the cloning debate? “It is, at bottom, about sex -- how to control it, how to punish it.”
But if it’s about sex, then why Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-770727352002-05-28T15:01:00.000-04:002002-05-28T15:41:48.000-04:00When is an anti-Catholic not anti-Catholic?
Martin Roth has a very perceptive take on my comments about the article on anti-Catholic opinions: "Praying the Post wonder why erroneous attitudes toward Catholics are called anti-Catholic."
What makes this perceptive is that, while what I wrote about calling certain erroneous beliefs anti-Catholic was, "I think that's great," what I was thinking as Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-770012472002-05-26T18:37:00.000-04:002002-05-27T08:31:54.000-04:00A simple experiment
They say that the social sciences aren't real sciences, but it is still possible, sometimes, to make hypotheses about our society and test them experimentally.
One hypothesis is this: Any piece of commentary that appears in the Washington Post whose author bills herself "as a lifelong Catholic and as a clinical psychologist" is going to conclude that the Church needs to Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-769312322002-05-24T13:53:00.000-04:002002-05-24T14:08:10.000-04:00The good news
According to a survey conducted by Fr. Andrew Greeley:
73 percent of non-Catholic American believe that Catholics "do what the pope and the bishops tell them to do";
52 percent of non-Catholic Americans believe that Catholics "really are not permitted to think for themselves";
83 percent of non-Catholic Americans believe that Catholics worship Mary and the saints; and
57 percent ofTomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-768064872002-05-21T14:11:00.000-04:002002-05-21T14:11:10.516-04:00If a thing is worth doing...
...it is worth doing badly. Which, perhaps, explains this blog.
Left to the professionals, it looks more like this.
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-767568672002-05-20T10:07:00.000-04:002002-05-21T11:22:03.000-04:00This time, in this place
There is an aspect of the story of the birth of East Timor that is only implicitly covered in yesterday's front-page story.
The article states that one of the reasons East Timor was able to be rebuilt to the point it has is the forgiveness shown by its people:
When the three militiamen who burned down Nicolao Ribero dos Santos's house returned to his village near the Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-766575182002-05-17T09:46:00.000-04:002002-05-17T11:27:04.000-04:00If you can't be good, don't worry about it
God bless Richard Cohen.
This is a prayer, of course, not an affirmation.
In his column today, Cohen argues against federal funding of abstinence-only programs in public schools. To him, this "is a measure so illogical that just to contemplate it raises the sound fear that you will lose your mind."
What is the logic by which Cohen reasons?
But even Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-765010462002-05-13T13:03:00.000-04:002002-05-13T13:25:08.000-04:00Church acts like everyone else. Everyone else shocked.
There's a front-page Post story today on how the Church is playing hardball against those who have brought sexual molestation suits against it.
Not that many people have brought sexual molestation suits against the Church as a whole, which after all extends through purgatory to heaven. The opening sentence of the article refers to a lawsuitTomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-765005602002-05-13T12:48:00.000-04:002002-05-13T12:50:57.000-04:00Preach the Gospel always. If necessary, use Java beans.
In his Regina Coeli speech for the Feast of the Assumption, 2002, Pope John Paul II pointed out that "il segreto di ogni azione apostolica è anzitutto la preghiera."
Which, thanks to Zenit and babelfish, I know means "the secret of every apostolic action is, first of all, prayer."
He was speaking about his message for the 36th World Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-763986592002-05-10T11:27:00.000-04:002002-05-10T11:48:39.000-04:00"I believe in the ultimate goodness of people..."
"...including the press." -- Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, Archbishop of Washington
I have this crackpot theory that the Post isn't anti-Catholic.
I think that the reporters want to write fair and accurate stories about interesting events and subjects. I think that the editors want to maintain a certain amount of balance and relevance in the Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-763984682002-05-10T11:21:00.000-04:002002-05-10T11:21:13.673-04:00Oh, hello there
Thanks to Martin Roth for his kind words about this site, and for creating a semi-definitive list of Christian blogs. I hadn't been thinking of this blog as "intriguing"; now that the thought is there, I just hope to avoid making it insufferable.
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-763083122002-05-08T12:29:00.000-04:002002-05-08T12:29:07.200-04:00They all look alike to us
CNN online has a story about an Irish priest who has resigned because he doesn't believe in God. The headline reads, "Heresy charge Irish priest quits." We pass over the grammar in silence to note that the subject of the story, Andrew Furlong, is -- or was -- Anglican.
We know this because the seventh of nine paragraphs tells us that this "Irish priest" "was ordained Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-763035832002-05-08T09:53:00.000-04:002002-05-08T12:30:27.000-04:00Scandal Outside the Beltway
The Post has been behaving itself.
In the greatest public scandal to hit the Catholic Church in the United States since -- well, ever -- even the Post's columnists have kept their heads, while those of the Times and the Globe have lost theirs. Sure, Richard Cohen has made some silly assertions, but he always does. Still, I haven't read anything in the Post in the Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-755186922002-04-17T16:59:00.000-04:002002-04-19T16:27:18.000-04:00So the day after I create this site, the Post runs a front-page puff piece about Washington's Cardinal McCarrick.
Actually, the article starts off curiously: "When American cardinals meet behind closed doors with Pope John Paul II next week...."
The cardinals and the Pope are meeting "behind closed doors"? Well, yes, I imagine they will. From all accounts, the Pope isn't up to having the Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3453983.post-754727102002-04-16T14:53:00.000-04:002002-04-16T15:09:09.000-04:00The Washington Post is one of the most important newspapers in the United States, and among the most important in the world. It covers local, national, and international news with authority and assurance, and takes its role as a journalistic standard for balance, completeness, and style very seriously. As a source of news, features, comics, classifieds, advertising circulars -- in short, as an Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.com