Faith & Reason: April 2010 Archives

Thanks to Gary Stern at Blogging Religiously for bringing the recent Kenneth Woodward article, "Church of the 'Times'" to my attention. Commonweal magazine will be publishing a print edition of this article in the May 7, 2010 edition. Woodward's perspective is just one among many, but does it have merit????

McGill University professor of History John Zucchi, Canada's national leader for Communion and Liberation, asks the provocative question in a brief essay, "Why I am a Catholic." John is a great guy, he's serious about his faith and he's sensitive to the movement of the Holy Spirit, but no one would claim he's a mediocre follower of Christ. The claims of faith in Christ, Zucchi tells us, have to have two criteria borrowing from Luigi Giussani: faith in Christ has to be reasonable and it has to broaden my humanity, a gift given by God Himself. Reason and humanity lead to and exude Mercy. Paraphrasing Cardinal Ratzinger in God and the World, to be a Christian means that you are sympathetic toward one's humanity that of another; a Christian is accepting of one's injuries and within these wounds a deeper healing is found.

Joseph (Jody) Bottum, Editor of First Things and a contributing editor at the Weekly Standard, wrote what may go down as THE best essay on the sex abuse crisis facing the Catholic Church in the current issue of the Weekly Standard, "Anti-Catholicism: The permanent scandal of the Vatican" (May 3, 2010). Bottum's piece is long but it's worth a thorough read. For those looking for the print edition, the article hit the news stands on Saturday in most places but the link is noted above.

The MedConference is a three-day medical conference open to physicians, nurses and students of medical and nursing schools.