Leah Libresco's Blog, page 22

I’m headed to CA for the Convinced premiere!

If any readers live out by Orange County, CA, or have friends who do, I’ll be there this Friday for the premiere of Convinced, a documentary about converts to Catholicism. Convinced includes interviews with a number of converts to Catholicism, and the one I’m most excited to meet in person is Holly Ordway, the author of Not [Read More...]

The Pitiful Princedom of Hannibal

At First Things, Alexi Sargeant  has an interesting take on the kind of evil on display in the tv show Hannibal.  (Note: I don’t watch the show — too brutal — so my experience of it is mostly gifsets shared on tumblr; I do love the showrunner’s previous show Pushing Daisies). So, I recommend the essay as [Read More...]

Beginning the Benedict Option Today

I got to hear Rod Dreher and Ken Myers (of the Mars Hill Audio Journal) discuss the Benedict Option this weekend at the Tocqueville Forum.  At least 200 people turned out, so, when it came time for questions, I wanted to make sure to ask something that would help us all do something in the [Read More...]

7QT: Breaking Bicycle, Weight, and Genre Rules

— 1 — I know, from personal experience, that the expression “It’s like riding a bike, one never forgets” is false, but I still really enjoyed seeing the design for a bike designed to go fast, flouting all the rules for road races. — 2 — And speaking of changing standards, Nautilus has a nice piece [Read More...]

Hamilton Is Blazingly Fast And I Can Prove It

I got to combine my love of musicals and math nerdery when I covered Hamilton‘s lyrical density for FiveThirtyEight this week. If “Hamilton” were sung at the pace of the other Broadway shows I looked at, it would take four to six hours (Miranda’s guestimate was off by half). At the slowest paces, “Hamilton” would only [Read More...]

7QT: Costumes, Communal Singing, and Hamilton

— 1 — A friend of mine is looking for good semi-pregnant Halloween costumes (she’s not big enough to go as a globe, as she hoped).  I don’t have that much to suggest (maybe you all have ideas for her?) but I do have a roundup of excellent parent-baby costumes.  My favorite is the child [Read More...]

Pope Francis And Catholics Disagree Deeply On the Death Penalty

Over at FiveThirtyEight, I’m covering the split between Pope Francis’s adamant opposition to the death penalty and American Catholics comfort with it: In a 2013 survey by the Pew Research Center, 55 percent of Americans said they supported the death penalty for people convicted of murder. Catholics were a little less likely than other Americans to express [Read More...]

Praying With Strangers, Now That The Pope’s Gone

The best part of the papal visit for me wasn’t the pope himself, but all the people he drew together in his wake.  I’m at First Things today, talking about how to keep making connections to all the people who filled the streets, now that we can’t rely on one big event to introduce us to [Read More...]

Pope Francis Retold Our American History

Catherine Addington has a great piece up today at The American Conservative on the way Pope Francis spoke to American Catholics, and emphasized how our American identity can be a gift we bring to the church: In his remarks to Pope Francis at Independence Hall, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia name-dropped Alexander Hamilton in praising the contributions [Read More...]

It’s Hard To Be A Priest In America, Spread Thinner Than Ever

I’ve got more popebloggery at FiveThirtyEight, this time, looking at Pope Francis’s guidance to his brother bishops on pastoral care, and how the demographics of American Catholicism make his call hard to live up to: In his final exhortation to his brother bishops in Washington, Pope Francis urged them to find ways to encourage the spiritual growth [Read More...]