One’s Molokai – “Catholic authors rarely speak of the untamed countryside in them. Their job is to write, not explain how. But their stories often come from low-clouded and cold places in them.” The Descent into the Mist of Catholic Writing (Crisis Magazine)
Gender Trouble – “If philosophy can be considered a series of footnotes to Plato, gender studies is a series of footnotes to Butler.” Judith Butler’s Sophistry (First Things)
The Abortion Pill – “Pro-life leaders refuse to hold the line as Trump and Vance indicate support for the majority of abortions.” The GOP Ticket Goes Soft on Chemical Abortion (National Review)
Rewritten GOP Platform – “Now that Americans have had a chance to digest the political earthquakes of the last week and a half, a lot of conservatives are circling back to a major disappointment that, like most news, faded to the background when Donald Trump was shot.” How Should Christians Respond to a Watered-Down GOP Platform? (Washington Stand)
Cultural Christian – “Elon Musk and others begin to recognize the only antidote to a destructive progressivism…” Yet another champion for “cultural Christianity” (World)
Conclave, The Movie – “Harris’s novel was published in 2016 and diplomatically set some years in the future, since the unnamed Holy Father lying dead of a heart attack in the Casa Santa Marta was clearly meant to be Francis.” The plotting to find the next Pope (The Spectator)
Vance’s Negative Headlines – “Good vice-presidential picks share certain common traits. They don’t attract negative headlines. They serve as the “attack dog” to the opposing ticket. They are free of scandal. They solidify the base.” Why JD Vance Has Stumbled Out of the Gate — And How He Can Regain His Footing (National Catholic Register)
Flaws in Reasoning – “When people are trying to persuade you, they sometimes reach for underhand tricks like the ‘appeal to ignorance’ or ‘whataboutism’ to seem more convincing. Amanda Ruggeri explains how to identify these logical fallacies.” Logical fallacies: Seven ways to spot a bad argument (BBC)
Scouts BSA – “Progressives notch another victory in their war on American institutions.” Girling the Boy Scouts (City Journal)
Shining in the Darkness – “One day after they mocked Christianity, Paris went black—except for the Basilica of Sacré Coeur ‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.’ John 1:5” “Divine intervention” – Footage of massive power outage in Paris, with only Sacre Coeur church lit up goes viral amid Olympics Last Supper controversy (SK Pop by Sportskeeda)
(*The posting of any particular news item or essay is not an endorsement of the content and perspective of said news item or essay.)
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Perusing some of the selected news items that the editors seem inclined to think of interest to Catholic readers, I wonder if CWR is helping to pave the way for the Left in November’s election. Just wondering.
I’m not sure how pieces from First Things, World, the Register, National Review, Washington Stand, etc., are “paving the way for the Left…” If it’s because some are critical of Trump/Vance, keep in mind that CWR is not here to carry water for this or that political party or politician, even though our editorial disdain for the Left is quite obvious.
Well, the “Flaws in Reasoning” article from the BBC certainly seems out of place, given how almost every example used attacks conservative arguments and favors leftism. It also misapplies those examples, making the case seem decidedly one-sided. In fact, one might argue that the article’s author is more interested in attacking conservative positions than providing a useful examination of errors in logic.
Rex, agreed. The BBC is hardly unbiased.
Exactly. The BBC is no friend of Catholics or conservatives.
@ One’s Molokai
Author Well’s Descent into the Mist seemed overly dramatic cliche until further reading, the true story of a marriage saved by a recluse priest who refused to obey the Covid shutdowns that US bishops imposed.
Not all that is gold glitters, as was recluse Fr Flum who by disobedience to orders saved a few parishioners. The mist of the inner soul of Well’s wife was pierced, then redemption from misery. There are gray areas in this life of good and evil. That was learned as a chaplain tossed into the sometimes bewildering wilderness of moral decision making for good or for evil, when neither was clear cut. As to the priests who didn’t follow those Covid commands they followed the voice of a better God.
I wish coomenters would specify which item they’re referring to.
Just sayin’.
@ The Abortion Pill/ and Rewritten GOP Platform
The Catch 22 is that, while the plaintiffs against Mifepristone might lack legal standing, those directly exterminated by fetal infanticide also have no standing or a voice at all.
Lacking in our blind culture is even the ability to think metaphysically. What does it mean when we miniaturize huge computers into finger-tip-sized chips, and at last Auschwitz into a medicine-cabinet pill?
AND no longer choose to see that God first miniaturizes the human person into a nearly microscopic and unborn child? The blind spot of our spatial imagination and of politicized euphemisms like the “right to choose” an abortion—or, instead, is it to choose abortion as a “rite”?
Dr. Seuss—partly blacklisted from children’s libraries because he got it right: “a person is a person, no matter how small.”
I think it’s shame when we even unconsciously allow ourselves to be maneuvered by the left’s talking points. JD Vance didn’t “stumble” out of the starting gate. The DNC attempted to trip him.
A voice of common sense, mrscracker.
I would like to give Extra! Extra! a heading, What’s Wrong With Trump?, but I can’t find the relevant articles to discuss the matter.
@ What’s Wrong With Trump?, you don’t have to brazenly rule out Project 25 nor do you ever have to brazenly call pro-life “the other extreme”. What you do is discuss what matters to voters whether you tie it to the party platform /Project 25 or not. Moreover the Republican Party DIDN’T HAVE TO ruin its platform to escape Project 25, either.
So much thoughtlessness and manoeuvering, empty gumption!
He has missed a threshold reading between the lines at The Abortion Pill and Rewritten GOP Platform. Or for that matter showing how he stands for family and society in the USA as if it’s so important to play open season.
“We can’t see it that way” he says. Who then is so fixed and ruled seeing things only black-and-white! Who is shutting down the moves and the plays. Feeding the other side.
@ Scouts BSA
Heather MacDonald is a woman I find easy to love. Why? Because she believes in men being men, and boys being boys who want to be men. British war veteran “Founder [along with America’s rough rider Teddy Roosevelt] Robert Baden-Powell envisioned an organization that would combine boys’ craving for heroism with a code of chivalry, wrapped in the lure of the outdoors”.
Sadly and irritatingly the once proud Boy Scout is now girled. Girl Scouts have their own proud organization. Why must the boys become girlish? That’s because of the Woke mind suffocating what by nature differentiates the two sexes, rather incorporating them together stripped of their natural law differences. MacDonald faults the egalitarian notion of inclusion.
MacDonald adds STEM is now programmed by elite universities to target Hispanic and Black girls to the detriment of boys. It’s a cultural devolution that suppresses maleness in favor, not simply girls, but minority girls. White girls apparently are creatures of a lesser kind in the madness of the day.
Catholic boys and girls [other faiths needless to say are welcome], whatever color, stand and fight, revolt against the girling of the Boy Scouts, and the homogenization of the sexes.