Mark P. Shea's Blog, page 155

Head of Vatican Secret Archives…

…enjoys muttering cryptic half-sentences just to mess with people’s heads.

Pre-existing conditions

From Senator Sherrod Brown, here is what the Kill the Weak Act passed by the super duper prolifiest party of Trump yesterday calls a pre-existing condition that you can be screwed out of coverage for: From Senator Sherrod Brown (Ohio), a list of pre-existing conditions with coverage lost under #Trumpcare: AIDS/HIV, acid reflux, acne, ADD, [Read More...]

Entire Pentecostal Congregation Joins Catholic Church

…including the pastor and his wife.  Welcome!  Lovely to have you!  Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ!

The Handmaid’s Tale is a true story…

…just not for white western women: Today there are parts of the world in which renting the womb of a poor woman is indeed ten times cheaper than in the US. The choice of wealthy white couples to implant embryos in the bodies of brown women is seen, not as colonialist exploitation, but as a [Read More...]

Pope Francis Offers a Critique of a Sacred Cow

Libertarian individualism: Finally, I cannot but speak of the serious risks associated with the invasion, at high levels of culture and education in both universities and in schools, of positions of libertarian individualism. A common feature of this fallacious paradigm is that it minimizes the common good, that is, “living well”, a “good life” in [Read More...]

Chesterton would have loved “Snow White”…

…sez Steve Greydanus.  I suspect he’s right.  Chesterton had an immense capacity for enjoying pretty much everything. Chesterton was a great defender of popular and even “vulgar” culture — the very change leveled by Lewis and Tolkien against Snow White. Take the following utterly typically Chestertonian sentiment, from All Things Considered: I believe firmly in [Read More...]

Two of the Most Important Children of the 20th Century…

…were Charles De Gaulle’s Anne and Rosemary Kennedy. De Gaulle’s tenderness toward his girl is one of the great public witnesses to the dignity of mentally disabled people. In contrast, the tragedy of Rosemary’s lobotomy and the shame and neglect to which she was subjected contributed (eventually) to Eunice Kennedy Shriver founding the Special Olympics [Read More...]

The Real Eugenicists

Last week’s Panic du Jour was about Bill Nye’s stupid commentary on “extra children”. Don’t get me wrong, Nye’s comments were stupid and his attempt to “just ask questions” was a transparent move to move such talk within the “universe of discourse” for Thoughtful People. So there was much dudgeon about it in prolife, conservative [Read More...]

Stephen Hawking, Puritan

As a prophet, Hawking is a good physicist. The idea that we should leave earth to fix things is a deeply Protestant and Puritan impulse that has roots going all the way back to Abraham and even Noah. The idea is this: The Righteous must “come out from them and be separate. Touch no unclean [Read More...]

A reader remarks on a story

…about a Christian abortionist: Consistent with pro-abort rhetoric, he isn’t going to argue the science, because he knows it points to the truth. What I take away from this article isn’t the obvious misunderstanding of the 10 Commandments (abortion does not equal murder, and it doesn’t say thou shalt not commit abortion, therefore its OK). [Read More...]