Taliban Catholicism is John Allen s description of web-based McCarthyism on the rise in the Catholic blogosphere nbsp Rachel Zoll has this nbsp fine piece about the self-appointed Inquisitors nbsp who nbsp flourish on the nbsp Internet nbsp H T to Margaret nbsp Steinfels at Dotcommonweal nb

A good friend of mine nbsp recently told me that he had seen the new Clint Eastwood movie Hereafter which focuses on questions of the afterlife nbsp I asked my friend a spiritual director what he thought of the film s portrayal of heaven and he just shrugged his shoulders nbsp Well he s

Powerful stuff and required reading from Peter Steinfels over at Commonweal on the leave-taking of Catholics from their church nbsp Why have I spent so much time on those of Catholic upbringing who have left the church First because the numbers are not trivial to put it mildly ldquo Catholi

St. Jean de Brébeuf’s life, like the lives of all the North American Martyrs, has much to teach us about working and living among those who are different from us.

With all the hoopla over the upcoming canonization of Mother Mary MacKillop the first Australian saint nbsp it would be nbsp terrible nbsp to forget another important canonization coming up nbsp this weekend on nbsp Oct 17 the amazing Andre Bessette the Holy Cross brother of Canada 1845-1937

New York Magazine has a fun feature on its last page called the Approval Matrix which critiques cultural trends nbsp Along the nbsp vertical axis is the spectrum Highbrow to Lowbrow nbsp Along the horizontal axis is Brilliant to Despicable nbsp nbsp Here is this week s in case nbsp my

There nbsp are actually 34 of nbsp us wrote Jimmy Sanchez 19 nbsp because God nbsp has never left us down here nbsp One of the 33 trapped miners in a letter quoted in Time magazine nbsp H t Deacon s Bench James Martin SJ

Here is Elizabeth Scalia aka The Anchoress commenting on tolerance inside and outside the church on the First Things blog nbsp nbsp Towards the end of her impassioned post The Tolerance Disconnect which starts with Glee but ends with the Holy Spirit nbsp she makes a provocative suggestion

Today is the Feast of Blessed John XXIII the beloved Papa Roncalli nbsp Here is a reflection on his life from My Life with the Saints Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was the third of thirteen children born in 1881 into the Roncalli family who were poor farmers in the town of Sotto il Monte near B

Last night I finally saw David Fincher s highly touted new film The Social Network and nbsp it s extraordinary nbsp I ve always been a fan of Fincher director of Fight Club The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and one of the great overlooked movies of the last ten years Zodiac nbsp nb