The Devil May Be Winning

This New York Times commentary on Pope Benedict’s visit troubles me in so many ways I’m having a hard time counting them. There’s one particular diabolical strategy in Lewis’ Screwtape Letters that I always found particularly compelling. Screwtape reminds Wormwood that one of the tools in the Tempter’s box is to warn the people of every age of a particular vice that is presently threatening them, when in fact it is the vice polar opposite to the one being shouted from the rooftops which threatens to overwhelm them.

Twenty Questions About this Blog — UPDATED with photo

Believe it or not, I’ve had some questions about the blog in side correspondence lately. Like: What’s up with the new look and feel of the website? Who are Tim Peach and Brian Freeman, anyway? Why are the comments so long? How many people read this?

To find the answers, I sat down with Mark Grannis, the founder of the blog. What follows is an unedited transcript of the interview.

Consequentialism and Integrity (or: Why People Disagree About Iraq)

A few weeks ago, toward the end of a spirited exchange on Iraq, abortion, Catholic social teaching, and the presidential election (we like to keep the topics narrow enough to be manageable on this blog), I expressed some thoughts on consequentialism that I was leaving unfinished because I needed a book from my shelf. Today, I give you the coda to that discussion, which of course I hope will turn out also to be a prelude to other discussions. Discussions about Iraq? Yes, and other things.

Angst Among The Angels

Ah, the complex relationship between American Catholics and the institutional Church. On the occasion of Pope Benedict XVI’s trip to the U.S., the New York Times recently printed an essay, “The View From My Pew.” The essay contrasts the author’s attitudes toward the Pope with those of his parents, and posits his relative detachment as how Catholics in general now regard the Pope. Clearly the author loves his faith, and loves his Church, but there was something simultaneously overstated and understated about the essay.

On Denouncing and Rejecting — or Empathizing

I’ve been corresponding extensively with family and friends about Sen. Obama’s two recent stumbling blocks: his speech on race, in which he addressed controversial sermons by Jeremiah Wright, and his comments about frustration and bitterness in small-town America. I had decided not to blog about these episodes, because the issues felt stale. But now, thanks to Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, I realize I was wrong. Given the amount of time those two devoted to these “gotcha” questions in Wednesday night’s debate, we may be talking about this for a long time yet to come. Since this ground has been well covered, though, I’ll focus only on what the two controversies have in common: In both cases, Obama put himself in the cross-hairs by empathizing.

Do It Yourself Demotivation

I’m sure many of you are already fans of despair.com, the website that offers “demotivational” posters and other flippant office paraphernalia.

Well, they’ve raised their game substantially with the addition of a “do it yourself” (DIY) feature. It allows you to upload a photo, enter a title and caption materials, and click. After a few seconds, you have your own custom-designed office wall hanging. The sky’s the limit! You absolutely have to try this. Here are a few of my efforts — please post your own:

The Case for Fundamental Tax Reform

It’s April 15, and like many Americans I just finished spending much too long trying to figure out what I owe in federal and state income taxes. What better day could there be to consider the need for fundamental tax reform?

O Captain! My Captain!

It’s April 14, and on this day in 1865 Abraham Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s Theater. His death the next morning stunned a nation that was still in the euphoria of Lee’s surrender to Grant less than a week earlier at Appomattox Court House.

Because we know how the story ended, it’s hard for us to appreciate what it must have been like to be stuck there in the middle of it. Lee had already concluded before Appomattox that the Confederacy could not win, and Richmond had already fallen, but the Confederacy still had armies in the field and their orders from Jefferson Davis were to keep fighting. And fight they did — one of the armies kept fighting until June. Prolonged guerilla fighting was the scenario favored by Davis, and it was a very real possibility.

Many in the north favored harsh terms for the south anyway, and needed little encouragement. Fortunately, Lincoln’s almost obsessive insistence on doing everything possible to promote post-war reconciliation with the south was well known to men like Grant and Sherman, and they continued to carry out his vision even after his death. Without the powerful moral authority of his memory, things might have turned out much worse.

With gratitude for the life of Abraham Lincoln, we observe the occasion with a trip to the Poetry Corner, to reacquaint ourselves with Walt Whitman’s reflections on Lincoln’s death.

Catholic Identity at Catholic Universities

I’ve been keeping only one eye on the blog for the last several days because of a sudden uptick in the demands of my day job. As a result, I have not even made it through all the comments on the subject of Catholic identity at Catholic universities. However, it appears we have moved well beyond the original scope of my little blurb last week about Greg Kalscheur.

Please Don’t Let Ted Turner Eat Me

Just when I was feeling particularly stupid and overextended, who steps in to make me look stable by comparison but Crazy Santa from Hotlanta, Mr. Ted Turner himself!  His latest interview in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution unfurls an impressive array of interesting positions on just about every major issue of the day.

Ted assures us that he’s entered a zone of personally unprecedented mental stability…

Admitting that he’s “always suffered from foot-in-the-mouth disease,” Turner added, “I’ve gotten a lot better, though. It’s been a long time since anybody caught me saying something stupid.”

Ted must be counting on the likelihood that literally no one reads ajc.com, which may generally be a reasonable presumption.  But today Matt Drudge dredged this up, and among the list of things Ted said that aren’t stupid are:

• Global warming will result in most of us being dead or turning to cannibalism in 30 or 40 years
• There are too many of us and everyone in the world needs to take a pledge that they’ll have two children at most
• China just wants to sell us shoes, and Russia wants to be our friends, too, so we can scrap the bulk of our military budget
• The Iraqi insurgents are patriots who just don’t like invaders

It’s offerings like this that convince me that the Hollywood Left may be in for a November Surprise again this year — I really have a tough time believing this kind of hyperbole plays well on Main Street.  At any rate, see the article here … I think you can listen to the interview at that link as well if you’re so inclined.