“Which religion, whose adherents accept the tenets of that religion as the truth about God, does not regard adherents of other faiths as holding imperfect theological notions? If religious belief is important, then to accept more perfect beliefs is to be more perfect.” - David Klinghoffer¹

Saint Dominic is surely at this moment imploring God’s intercession. What in the world are the Dominicans in Holland thinking?¹ Why is the Church not reacting more strongly‽

The study¹ findings were released in book form, not in a journal. I suspect that means that its findings are useless and meaningless. Still, a pair of real researchers, working for institutions of higher learning (a college and a university respectively), found a 67% success rate in changing sexual orientation through a program of “group discussions, counseling, journal writing, Scripture reading and prayer.”²

However, since it is not in a peer reviewed journal, their effort is wasted, their study might as well not exist.

Periodically I get challenged on my repeated assertion that Evolution, to the (limited) extent it can be called a single theory, is inherently opposed to theism. Mr. Casey Luskin is here today to back me up on this one, having taken the time to summarize some recent examples of this.¹ Such statements as these lend credence to my assertion that evolution is not, in fact, a scientific theory at all, but is rather a philosophical one. His examples come from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature, Cell Cycle, Microbe Magazine, and Gene. They also come from a variety of authors.

This listing of examples is short, and is by no means definitive proof. Still, it does lend at least some credence.

Archbishop Wuerl has proposed making eight of the twelve inner city schools in his diocese into charter schools to save them from closing down completely.¹ This would entail changing the names of the schools and removing religion from the curriculum. Once upon a time, a parish would offer free or nearly free tuition, running the school on general parish funds, and making ends meet because nuns, sisters, brothers and deacons do not make as much as lay staff. As lay teachers and administration replaced the religious, the operating expenses rose. Many parishes could no longer afford to pay for all of the school’s expenses, and started charging and raising tuition. Apparently the archdiocese of Washington D.C still heavily subsidizes the students’ tuition, but with free charter schools, parents are pulling their children from the Catholic schools to save money.

This is entirely understandable, parents have so many struggles and sacrifices on their plates as they try to raise their children. This is especially true of our inner city poor. That is why I am not as upset about this proposal as I could be. If the choice is between closing the schools and secularizing them, then by all means secularize them. The students will get a lesser education, but hopefully still better than that in the public schools available to them. Still, I hope this is not a result of the diocese expecting the schools to support themselves. That is an all too common perspective (it seems to me) for a pastor to have, and one that I believe is at best suboptimal if not outright wrong.

I would love to quote this¹ in full. The Register’s copyright does not permit that though, so I can only highly recommend you read this very short article. Hopefully this is not one of the ones that requires you have a subscription to reach. In short, in case it is, MTV conducted a survey of its demographic group. It found that “75% of survey participants said God or a higher power has some impact on their happiness”² and that 80% of those who place religion or spirituality first in their life report being happy.³

In The Gay Report, by homosexual researchers Karla Jay and Allen Young, the authors report that 73% of homosexuals surveyed had at some time had sex with boys 16 to 19 years of age or younger. Dr. Paul McHugh, former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, calls a report of the John Jay Criminal College a “bombshell.” John Jay found that the Catholic abuse crisis wasn’t pedophilia but “homosexual predation on American Catholic youth.”¹

All the child safety programs in the world are useless if we, and they (the programs), do not confront this fact. Will excluding homosexuals from the priesthood alone solve the problem? No, clearly not. Not every instance of abuse by priests was an example of homosexual predation. However, many of them no doubt were just that. This is why so many of the victims were young men and boys. If an end to celibacy were the cure, you would expect that most of the victims would be female, not male.

More accurately, polygyny is already there, the question is whether or not it will become officially legal.¹ I am disgusted almost beyond words. The one comment worthy aspect of the article is the trenchant observation that freedom of religion would have to give way if this were a question of homosexual rights or marriage, but is held up as absolute when it comes to polygynous marriage. It is almost beyond belief. How can a people that celebrates the value of women allow this‽

I went to Mass last night for the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Vigil. I do not think I have attended on the vigil for this holy day before, because I was surprised to see the Gospel reading, not because it does not fit — it does, but because it fits so very well.¹

While Jesus was speaking, a woman from the crowd called out and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed.” He replied, “Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.”²

A Protestant might see this and think “See, Mary is not so special.” Such a Protestant would have missed something crucial. Here, Jesus is pointing out that what makes Mary so special is not the simple fact that she is his mother, but the unique and absolute nature of her “Yes” to God. For who besides Christ Himself has heard the word of God and observed it with the fidelity that Mary has?

If you take a careful look at the numbers and the polls, it appears that support for the pro-life position is gaining support across the United States.¹ While a huge majority will (unfortunately) respond that they are in favor of abortion being legal in most cases, a smaller but still significant majority would ban it except to save the life of the mother. How can this discrepancy be resolved?

Ms. Wills claims that it is due to the fact that most Americans will say “most” over “all,” and that others get confused over whether the word “most” means “most abortions” or “most reasons for abortions.” The latter they would support, even though only a tiny fraction of those reasons represent most abortions.

This is not unmixed news. It represents a great deal of work left for those attempting to battle for the lives of the most defenseless and innocent among us. Still, it does appear the situation is improving, and it is good to be aware of just how problematic polls on the subject can be.