Free Republic

More and more, I wonder whether lefties mean it, any of it. Take Rosie O’Donnell. The other day, one of her co-hosts on “The View” was musing on current events and opined, “If you take radical Islam and you want to talk about what is going on there you have to…” And at this point Rosie interrupted. “One second. Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America where we have a separation of church and state.” Does she really believe that? That “radical Christianity” is “just as threatening” as “radical Islam”? These terms are...

by George Weigel Other Articles by George WeigelContact this Author Two Catholics of Consequence 11/03/06 Two of the most influential Catholics in American public life marked important milestones in their lives and careers last month. The nation owes both men a large debt of gratitude. For the first time in a very long time, Henry Hyde’s name will not be on a ballot in this election cycle: one of the greatest Catholic legislators in US history is retiring, full of years — and not a few pains — but unbroken and unbowed. It’s hard to imagine the US House of Representatives...

As the 2006 midterm elections approach, a battle of the booklets is likely in many US Catholic venues. First into the lists was Voting for the Common Good: A Practical Guide for Conscientious Catholics, published last month by Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, a group led by Alexia Kelley, an advisor to the Kerry campaign in 2004. Now comes Catholics in the Public Square, written by Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix as part of the “Shepherd’s Voice” series being launched by Basilica Press (www.basilicapress.com). Bishop Olmsted takes a question-and-answer approach to controverted issues of Catholic conscience and political...

At the height of the morning commute on March 11, 2004, ten bombs exploded in and around four train stations in Madrid. Almost 200 Spaniards were killed, and some 2,000 wounded. The next day, Spain seemed to be standing firm against terror, with demonstrators around the country wielding signs denouncing the “murderers” and “assassins.” Yet things did not hold. Seventy-two hours after the bombs had strewn arms, legs, heads, and other body parts over three train stations and a marshaling yard, the Spanish government of José María Aznar, a staunch ally of the United States and Great Britain in Iraq,...

Remembering John Paul the Great By George Weigel A year ago, the world stopped, quite literally, to honor a Polish priest and bishop who had touched hearts, minds, and souls unlike anyone else of his era. Millions poured into Rome to pay homage to Pope John Paul II. Two billion people participated in his funeral by television. In the year since his triple-casket of cypress, zinc, and walnut was buried in the crypt of St. Peter’s basilica, millions more have come to pay their respects, to leave flowers, and to pray. Why? What did John Paul II do, such that...

Cartoons and the clash of civilizations By George Weigel Harvard professor Samuel Huntington’s “class of civilizations” hypothesis — a provocative preview of a twenty-first century in which religiously shaped cultural conflicts define the fault-lines of world politics — created a considerable intellectual stir when it was first published in 1993. It also caused an allergic reaction in the Vatican that persisted for over a decade, which always seemed to me puzzling. Perhaps some churchmen, reading about the controversy over the book rather than reading the book itself, imagined that Huntington was prescribing a clash of civilizations; in fact, the mild-mannered...

After the dust has settled -- after the processions are over and the Masses have been said, after the new pope has accustomed himself to new apartments, new tasks, new vestments -- Benedict XVI will face an extraordinary list of problems, ranging from the bioethical to the geopolitical. But for this German pope, among his toughest tasks by far will be the battle for acceptance on the continent of his birth. It sounds paradoxical, given the European splendor in which the church has been cloaked for the past several weeks -- the scenes of Rome, St. Peter's Square, the Sistine...

Biographer lays out admiration of pope John Paul shaping life in 21st century, audience in Milwaukee hears By TOM HEINEN theinen@journalsentinel.com Last Updated: June 6, 2003 Suggesting that Pope John Paul II has had the most consequential pontificate since the Reformation in the 1500s, biographer George Weigel told an enthusiastic crowd of Catholics in Milwaukee this week that the pope's historic accomplishments are shaping life in the 21st century. Weigel, author of "Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II," is a theologian, Catholic newspaper columnist and senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington,...

Story of the little prayer book that could Go to any Catholic venue in the United States - parish church, retreat center, convent, high school, college chaplaincy, retirement community - and you'll find it. You can also see it being used on planes and trains, buses and subways. On at least one occasion I saw it in the front seat of a cab. What is "it?" It's Magnificat, the monthly missal/prayer book that's an astonishing success story - and, just perhaps, a sign of real progress in the reform of the reform of the liturgy. Magnificat was the inspiration of...