I have a back-log of Zenit stories about the Pope, so I'll drop them all here:
Last week, the pope addressed two pontifical academies - the Academy of the Sciences and the Academy of the Social Sciences - and unveiled a sculpture of Pope John Paul II.
Zenit has the text of his address, in which he talked about the centrailty of the human person in society. An excerpt:
The concept of person continues to bring about a profound understanding of the unique character and social dimension of every human being. This is especially true in legal and social institutions, where the notion of "person" is fundamental. Sometimes, however, even when this is recognized in international declarations and legal statutes, certain cultures, especially when not deeply touched by the Gospel, remain strongly influenced by group-centered ideologies or by an individualistic and secularist view of society. The social doctrine of the Catholic Church, which places the human person at the heart and source of social order, can offer much to the contemporary consideration of social themes.
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Here is the Zenit translation of the Pope's address at last week's general audience, which reflected on Ephesians 1:3-10.
Here is an excerpt:
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Last week, the Pope also met with participants in a conference of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Here is the text of his remarks to them.
Excerpt:
Here I wish to mention the importance of helping native communities, all too often subjected to undue appropriations aimed at profit, as your Organization recently pointed out in its "Guidelines on the Right to Food." Also, it must not be forgotten that, while some areas are subject to international measures and controls, millions of people are condemned to hunger, even outright starvation, in areas where violent conflicts are taking place, conflicts which public opinion tends to neglect because they are considered "internal," "ethnic" or "tribal." Yet these conflicts have seen human lives systematically eliminated, while people have been uprooted from their lands and at times forced, in order to flee certain death, to leave their precarious settlements in refugee camps.
An encouraging sign is the initiative of FAO to convene its Member States to discuss the issue of agrarian reform and rural development. This is not a new area, but one in which the Church has always shown interest, out of particular concern for small rural farmers who represent a significant part of the active population especially in developing countries. One course of action might be to ensure that rural populations receive the resources and tools which they need, beginning with education and training, as well as organizational structures capable of safeguarding small family farms and cooperatives (cf. "Gaudium et Spes," 71).
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The Spanish bishops have invited the Pope to attend the 2006 World Meetng for Families (official English Website here. The Pope has already said he plans to attend.
I haven't listened to it yet, but this promises to be interesting. The line-up includes John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter and Bishop William Skylstad, head of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Cubs GM meets with Rafael Furcal.
I am excited, but I bet Larry is about to wet himself.
So it's officially out now. The document that some on both sides of the debate seem to think authorizes live-burning of gays was released officially today. The official English translation is here.
Here is the money quote:
Every day the Cubs spend signing relievers and back-ups and not closing deals to strengthen their swiss-cheese line-up I start feeling sicker and sicker. We have not a single star outfielder, but hey, we got John Mabry.
I'm not saying I have no confidence that Hendry will do something, but where's the urgency to snap up the guys who will score and drive in the runs that will win the games?
We made it back from Columbus in well under 5 hours today. That's well over 300 miles in well under 300 minutes, with a stop to change drivers.
I credit the record time to a short-cut one of the truck drivers at work tught me around Indianapolis. 38th Street baby!
I also found out that one of Mama-Lu's cousins that I never met before reads this blog. Hi Stephanie! Check back for a link to pictures from the weekend!
Tons of email. I'll respond sloooowly.
8 AM tomorrow, I have a meeting. We'll see what happens!
Apparently this hotel has Wi-Fi!
This won't be a long post, as I'm tapping away on my PDA and my hand is cramping up.
We're in Columbus, OH right now. Had Thanksgiving with Mama-Lu's fam. It's been fun; I'll have pictures next week.
Later!
Christianity Today on one of the most controversial texts in the Bible..
A good article as far as it goes, though I dared Mama-Lu to write the editors to say: "It's about sex!"
Please pray that I receive the gift of Counsel.
I went to an interview today for a part-time job for next spring. I came out with an interview on Wednesday for a new career.
Here's the situation:
PROS
- The job I will be interviewing for is in the field I'm currently studying (accounting).
- The pay will be comparable. The head of the company today told me he would match my salary.
- In addition, there are prospects for career development in accounting that I don't have where I am now.
- The job is interesting. In this position, I'd be working 30 hours per week contracted out to the government administering a grant program (a pretty neat grant program, btw). The rest of the time, I'd be working in the home office gaining experience I simply have no other opportunity to obtain in my present situation. In fact, the experience I could get in this job may even make pursuing much more education irrelevant.
- Big one: it's a Christian environment. The company has a mission statement that involves praising Jesus Christ. The boss and I even discussed witnessing in a non-Christian work environment during the interview. It's not like I want to completely flee the world for a Christian bubble, but I do like the idea of working with and for people who share my values.
CONS:
- I'm not quite sure about the benefits. I think we'd be OK, and I of course intend to find out more info before making any decisions, but it would be very hard to beat the benefits I have now as an employee of a huge corporation. Especially tuition reimbursement and the free goodies I get.
- I've only been working my current job for 18 months. I wasn't looking to switch right now, and this came out of nowhere. The last thing I want to do is make a hasty decision. It's true I'm not thrilled with my job right now, but the people there have been good to me, and I'm well-liked, even if I'm not exactly challenged.
- Timing. It's possible that the new job would start in about 3 1/2 weeks, which is about when little Charles or Maria is due. As it is, I have a week and a half of vaction plus a few sick days I can use to stay home when the baby is born. I don't think I could take this job if there is no way to work around this.
That about sums it up. There's a few less consequential considerations, like the loss of the company-contributed part of my 401(k) and having to pay back tuition reimbursement if I leave my current job, but those are minor. The decision really comes down to two things: will the benefits - particularly the health benefits - be comparable, and can we work around the upcoming birth of my second-born? If those two things fall into place (and, you know, I actually get the job), then it looks like the better choice.
Please pray for me, that if I am offered the position, I might make the right decisions for my family and for myself. I'm kind of on Cloud Nine (whatever that actually means) right now, because the interview today went so well, and I actually felt like the head guy really wants me for the job. I don't want to make a hasty decision based on that, though. I have some investigating to do and some real thought and prayer to put into this, but I can't help being excited.
The head guy is going to try to set up a meeting for me on Wednesday with the head of the grant program. Then I'll be calling back to the office to talk again to the head of the firm while the Lu- family drives to Columbus, OH for Thanksgiving. At that time, depending on how the meeting goes, I intend to ask more details about the benefits and time frame questions.
At the very least, it looks like if the full-time gig doesn't work out, I still got the part-time seasonal job that was the job for which I was originally interviewing. Even that would provide me with valuable experience and could be a foot-in-the-door for future positions for this company, which is strong and growing. It may even be the case that keeping my current job and taking this seasonal gig, which would be recurring, would end up better than jumping ship for this new place altogether, giving me "the best of both worlds" so to speak.
I guess there's more: the background to all of this is that I've not been terribly happy at work lately. Its not a matter of a hellish work environment - in fact a happy fringe benefit is that I'm quite often left alone with nobody bothering me. The problem is that I simply am not challenged in my job. Anybody can do what I do, but there was no real system set up for it when I got the job. Now that I've come up with processes and streamlined some others, anybody who'se moderately computer-literate and who can handle large amounts of paperwork can do it. Jenny and I have even discussed this recently and we talked about possible career-change plans for me.
Even so, I was not looking for this right now (duh, I have a kiddie coming next month). Although intrigued by this grant position when I first heard about it through an email from my instructor, I dismissed it because the email left me with the impression that it was just a permanent part-time thing. The grant job came up during my interview and it was only then that I learned about getting time in the home office, making it a full-time position.
As I said, I still have thinking and praying (and information-gathering and interviewing) to do. In the meantime, please pray for me an the Lu- family. I will keep you updated as the week unfolds.
A satirical hagiography from David Brooks circa 1983 transcribed for your pleasure by Sean Gleeson.
Things will only get worse. From Mark Steyn:
That would seem to be in defiance of what we used quaintly to call "the facts of life." But who cares about biology? As Hester Lessard, the eminently eminent law professor at the University of Victoria, has argued, "biological" concepts of parenthood are "an increasingly fictional creation narrative" that "legitimates a heterosexual view of the family." And we wouldn't want that, would we? Which is why earlier this year the Province of Ontario passed Bill 171 abolishing the words "husband," "wife," "widow," "widower," "man" and "woman" from its laws--and not just the words but the very concept of gender.
More:
Think I'm kidding? Compare the suspicion and denigration of genetically modified foods to what's mostly either enthusiasm for or indifference to genetically modified people. Mess with our vegetables, we'll burn down your factory. Mess with us, and we pass you our credit card. And by the time we wonder whether it was all such a smart idea it'll be the clones who have the Platinum Visa cards.
...can be found in one sentence here.
Now most sane people might say that voting is the way the citizen participates in his democracy. But that's not how the press sees it. They see their product as the liturgy of democracy. So what does that make them? The priest, bishop, pope.
That odor you smell is the stench of smug self-importance. It's also the smell of irony: the irony of an East Coast Liberal telling men - not the national collective mind you, but individual citizens - that their identity comes from what they read in the NY Times and the Boston Globe. So much for individuality and disdain for institutional pre-programming! I guess adhering to a common faith is only bad if that faith is in God.
UPDATE: Added previously omitted link.
The little guy is feeling a ton better! Thank to any of you who stopped by and said a prayer for him!
Yesterday was a very rough day around here. Matthew was unsatisfiable. He cried all day, it seemed. He also hardly ate a thing until dinner, and getting him to sleep was a team effort that took over an hour.
Today, however, he woke up with his usual joy... and violence... as much as I don't like being awakened with kicks to the head, I knew this morning that he was feeling his usual chipper self in the morning.
alicia got me with a somewhat ironic meme in light of the post five down from here.
There's no actual description of the meme, so I guess I'll have to figure it out somehow...
I confess that I enjoy certain morally suspect movies, specifically violent movies, and especially mafia flicks and movies where "the good guys" and "the bad guys" are morally equivalent.
I confess that working with truck drivers makes me swear more.
I confess that I find nothing whatsoever wrong with drinking alone.
I confess to feeling real malice, born of intense jealousy, towards the 2005 Chicago White Sox.
I confess to eating 3/4 of a row of Chips Ahoy cookies (~10-12 cookies I think) in about 5 minutes last week when I was sick and nothing else sounded good.
I confess that I'm starting to love rooting for Ohio State (my wife comes from a Buckeye family) and that it's refreshing to get on a winning bandwagon after two decades of football disenfranchisement at both the professional (Da Bears) and collegiate [the Fighting (haha) Illini] levels.
I confess that I purchased "Return to Me" on DVD siply because I needed a chick flick to round out my movie collection.
Is this enough? Can I stop now?
OK, I tag John Bambenek, the other Chris Lu, Ellyn and Zadok.
Our family has been passing some bug back and forth for about a week and a half now. It's the boy's turn now, and he's got it bad.
Thursday night he barely slept and was awake crying from about 5 AM to almost 6. Friday morning his temperature hit 103 (under the arm) before we got him in to see a doctor. It's a virus, they say, so instead of antibiotics they prescribed infant Ibuprofen, which has worked miracles so far, especially compared to the Tylenol - plus, it came with a cool syringe-type despenser instead of the standard rubber dropper.
It's horrible to see my little guy crying and have no ability to make it better. Here's hoping he's better tomorrow, I want my happy, crazy little ball of energy back.
Maybe you could say a little prayer to that end, please?
A pro-life news service that specializes in hysteria says (emphasis added):
Is that what the Catechism says? Let's open up our Catehism at random and see where we land... aaaaaand OK... here we go (again, emphasis added).
If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.
Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically nonexistent."
So according to the hystericists, I can support the death penalty even though the circumstances where its use is licit do not exist in my country?
I happen to agree (albeit with significant reservations) with the notion that a flashy campaign against the death penalty is not the best use of the Church's resources at this time (after all where is the CCEA to go along with the CCEDP? ), but what good is it to dispense with the teachings of the Church in order to belabor the point? Or to put it another way, what will it profit a man...?
Sandro Magister on Pope Benedict's handling of the bishops.
According to Magister, the Italians got "a collective accolade," the Austrians got "the riot act" and the Brazilians got a surprise:
But Benedict XVI said to them all of a sudden: “It will be held in Brazil,� and immediately asked what the country’s most venerated Marian shrine is. “The Aparecida,� they replied. And the pope: “In Brazil, at the Aparecida, in May. I’ll be there.�
Of course, nobody likes uninvited guests, but surely we can make an exception for the Pope?
Slate has an interesting if unhelpful little piece about Catholics and Confessing - specifically why the former ain't doin' the latter.
What stands out about this piece is the irony of a let-it-all-hang-out generation that somehow abhors the idea of anonymous confession.
All this public confessing testifies to the impulse to share our deepest shame. So, why isn't that impulse manifesting itself in Catholics practicing the ritual that was created expressly for that purpose? Of course, Catholic penance—whether it's done in a confessional booth or in a face-to-face meeting with a priest, an innovation introduced in 1973—is supposed to be private and confidential. It may be that in an age of media-fueled exhibitionism, some people want more attention for our misdeeds than can be had from whispering a list of sins in a box in a church. But those Internet confessions won't count toward absolution in the eyes of the church any time soon. "There are no sacraments on the Internet," declared the Pontifical Council for Social Communication unequivocally in 2002.
Despite a reasonably fair analysis of the situation, the author misses the most obvious factor keeping Catholics from receiving absolution: the prevalence (yes I'm using this word properly) of the idea that there is no such thing as sin. Call it relativism, call it the "loss of the sense of sin," no matter: if Catholics don't believe that their actions are in fact sinful, why should they seek forgiveness for them?
Another small point that sticks out: the author asserts that the Sacrament's "official" name is "The Sacrament of Reconciliation". This is untrue. The "official" name (according to the Catechism) is actually "The Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation".
One of my least favorite words in this language of ours is healthful. I was about to write a diatribe against it when I came across this page which explains that the recent increase in the use of this hideous word is actually a return to the proper use. I still don't like it: almost every time I hear it used, the context is politically correct/sterile/manipulative. I put it in the same category as going forward, impact used as a verb and proactive. Unfortunately, in this instance I am beat; healthful is proper English.
The linked page also has some other interesting language tidbits, though most of them are already pet peeves of mine. One, however, was new to me: apparently the word prevalent was originally used pejoratively. So, "happiness is a prevalent emotion" is somewhat contradictory (unless you don't like happiness). "Cockroaches are prevalent in Chicago" would be a more appropriate use.
Junk food!
The World reports that Iranians are getting huge off domestic knock-offs of American fast-food chains. Oh well, if we can't stop them from getting nukes (which we can't), we might as well export our girth. Maybe we'll make them too fat and lazy to get off their rears to blow up the world.
If they can take their eyes off of their darling little girl!
Gaudi masterpiece sparks controversy from UPI.
[Before I begin, I'd like to ask that if my sister-in-law Regina is reading this, go on ahead an skip to the next post.]
So West Virginia is banning high-proof grain alcohol.
My thoughts go bck to the late 90's, when my roommate/drinking buddy and I would stumble home after a long night of excessive alcohol abuse and trade shots of Gem Clear (190 proof) just to finish ourselves off.
Or to even earlier times than that, when my floormates and I spiked Fruitopias with Gem clear and took them to our Japanese Language and Culture class.
Not my fondest nor proudest memories, these, but still I find myself getting sentimental at the news...
NRO has put up about a dozen flashbacks of Buckley's writings and speeches. My favorite: Buckley gives thanks for peanut butter.
I subscribe to Yahoo's RSS feed for opinion articles. Yes, I have to deal with junk from The Nation and Ted Rall, not to mention The Huffington Post. In the end, it's been worth it for Maggie Gallagher, and the occasional Bill Buckley piece that is coherent these days.
Imagine my chagrin yesterday when I opened the feed and saw a piece from.... Wonkette!
That's the last straw. I'm dumping Yahoo.
Best analysis: "Dorothy Blades... thinks men crave the sense of power that only blasting a pumpkin into orbit in front of a large crowd can provide. 'Plus it's a drinkathon,' she adds."
Update: NPR has an audio piece with photos here.
I had a weird dream last night.. the Cubs gave $11 million to a reliever I'd never heard of.
*shrug*
Dutch nerds with nothing better to do set up four million dominoes to break the world record for, well, domino knocking-over (which they themselves already hold). A bird flies through the window and sets off a chain reaction knocking down 23,000 of the dominos.
The bird is then promptly shot and killed by an exterminator who happened to be hanging around.
And of course, since it's Europe, the guy who shot the bird has received death threats and could be prosecuted.
The Ethics and Public Policy Center hosted an event last week featuring George Weigel discussing his latest book: God's Choice.
This page has a link to an audio file of Weigel's remarks. I haven't listened to it yet; these lab computers don't have audio...
Mama Lu's horse during the recent conclave gave an interview to Inside the Vatican Magazine.
Nobody dispenses with BS like this man.
Here is Zenit's translation of the address Pope Benedict XVI delivered at today's general audience in St. Reter's Square.
Excerpt:
This is what the Christian interpretation of the psalm proclaims clearly, as attested by the Fathers of the Church who see the summit of the history of salvation and the supreme sign of the merciful love of the Father in the gift of the Son, as Savior and Redeemer of humanity (cf. John 3:16).
I got my Power Point presentation done last night as the lab was closing last night (~9:45), saving myself a stop at work to finish up and email it in. I went home and studied for my exam until about midnight. At work today, I spent the last half hour finishing my studying, went straight to the test, and just finished the lab that was due after the exam.
Now all I have to do is do a fake resume and cover letter for by business communication class and I'm done until after thanksgiving!
Have I yet mention how stupid my BusComm class is? First of all, it's ALL on-line. Business communications is all on-line. This is fine by me, but I think it misses the point. Also, my teacher is kind of dim. She sent out an email 30 minutes before one of our assignments was due (which was at midnight) to change the instructions. Way to communicate! Finally, the course is a TON of work for very little useful material. In short, it's a big waste of time. There's more dumb stuff my teacher has done, but I can't think of it right now.
Speaking of my resume (two paragraphs up), say a little prayer for me, eh? I have an initial telephone interview tomorrow for a part-time job for next semester. It also has a lot more to do with my current line of studies than my 9-5 so it could be useful experience for the future. Also, if the pay is enough, I can maybe not take classes next semester and pay down my student loans a bit, and bring home some higher quality bacon as well.
A brief bio from Godspy. Amazing story. Much could be said by somebody who didn't have to go to work about Charles' relationship with the Muslim people around whom he lived.
Blogging will be light this week.
I have a Power Point Presentation due Tuesday at midnight and a test Wednesday evening. Tuesday night we have an extra-curricular CCD event. Mama-Lu invited a representative of the Jewish community here in town to speak to the sixth, seventh and eighth grade kids about the Old Testament. Um yeah, and I also have to work 16 hours in that time...
I must admit to knowing little about the newest blessed, but Fides Service has impressive quotes from some of his followers around the world.
From this Opinion Journal piece on homeschoolers and what they read:
"A Society Without God Ends Up as a Society Against Man."
Father Larranaga is the author of an incredible biography of St. Francis: Brother Francis of Assisi. It is a deeply spiritual and deeply psychological work full of insights into Francis' inner life. He also has written a life of Christ and a life of Mary, but I've never been able to get my hands on them.
I don't know too much about the Prayer and Life Workshops he founded, but he outlines them a bit in Transfiguration, a short treatise on prayer. The movement seems to simply be about teaching people to pray--as worthy an apostolate as there can be.
How about this for a starting rotation next year:
Carlos Zambrano
Roger Clemens
Mark Prior
Greg Maddux
Kery Wood/Glendon Rusch/Jerome Williams
And wouldn't Manny Ramirez look good in Cubby blue?
On the other hand, Johnny Damon is a free agent...
You've got a lot of options, Hendry.
It turns out the birth control path is killing women three times faster than the pill.
It looks like I'm a week behind bringing you the text of the Holy Father's weekly audiences.
Here is last week's, from November 2, a reflection on Psalm 111 (112).
Excerpt:
At the end of this address, while addressing members of the Italian Association of Large Families, the Holy Father made an appeal for help for large families.
"In the present social context, family nuclei with many children are a testimony of faith, courage and optimism, as without children there is no future!" he exclaimed, prompting applause and smiles from those present.
"I hope that more social and legislative measures will be promoted in defense and support of the largest families, which constitute a richness and hope for the whole country," Benedict XVI concluded.
Here is this week's, from November 9, on Psalm 135 (136): 1-9.
Excerpt:
Even before discovering the God who reveals himself in the history of a people, there is a cosmic revelation, open to all, offered to the whole of humanity by the only Creator, "God of gods" and "Lord of lords" (cf. verses 2-3).
Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin was interviewed on Tom Ashbrook's On Point about her new book on Lincoln. If you have the time and any interest, take a listen.
She also talked to Terry Gross about the book.
Here's a preview of our wedding pictures, which I'm currently uploading to ophoto. I'll post a link when they're all up, though it might take a while. Our scanner is slooooooooooooooow.
In the summer '05 City Journal, I found a piece whose subtitle says it all: Today's new baseball stadiums offer a lesson in smart urbanism.
[...]
Predictably, the modernist- and postmodernist-dominated architectural establishment hates the new stadiums. Former New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp, for instance, dubs them “America’s most diseased building type,� rising out of baseball’s “sickly longings for a past that never existed, a pastoral, even anti-urban, vision.�
In fact, the new parks are anything but anti-urban. One of their key appeals is how they respectfully integrate with the urban landscapes around them. San Diego’s Petco Park, an exemplar of the new-old style, for instance, incorporates elements of the local Spanish-mission style, including a lovely sandstone and tan stucco exterior. Similarly, designers finished off the facade of Pittsburgh’s PNC Park in rough limestone to match its setting in a former industrial area.
By contrast, the modernists largely ignore the idea of architectural context, believing that it shackles their imaginations. It’s a shame that developers and business executives have caved under elite pressure and erected and occupied so many alienating modernist office buildings. It’s rare to find a developer who’ll actually live in a home built in this arid style. And it’s worth noting that CEO offices in today’s Corbusian towers often boast wood paneling and other warm features sharply at odds with the cold environments encasing them. Yet the modernist eyesores keep going up, perhaps because those who commission them don’t want to look behind the times.
It's a great piece, and the fact that it disparages U.S. Cellular Field doesn't influence my opinion at all.
Traditional European winemakers try to survive the market takeover by American wine-labs.
Link found at (and clever title stolen from) Arts and Letters Daily.
Students in world's fattest country create junk food black-market to get around school bans.
Apparently I sounded a chord that resonated (for better or worse) amongst certain readers with my link to the article about pregnancy making you stupid. Reports have come in that a response was dictated, but the scribe charged with the task refused to publish it. In an attempt to balance things out, I bring you this article (from the Columbus newspaper, no less!), which argues the opposite.
Comparing the brain of a non-mother to that of a mother is "like comparing a tree in the winter to one in full bloom in the spring, when it is much fuller and richer," said University of Richmond (Va.) neuroscientist Craig Kinsley, a leading researcher in the field.
Catholic News Agency had a very laudatory story about the Newman Center at my alma mater and its current chaplain on Friday. Fellow alumni might like to take a look.
If you by chance happen by here today, please say a prayer for my lovely wife on the anniversary of her birth!
If you have children in the public schools, you need to go here.
A little early, but if I don't post this now, I'll never remember. My boss sent me this e-card today:
I've mentioned before that Bill Donohue gives me headaches. Well, sometimes he makes up for it.
From Lifesitenews.com:
Catholic League president Bill Donohue responded to Wallace's remarks saying, "We at the Catholic League like nice Catholic boys who don't believe in abortion. For that matter, we even like not-so-nice non-Catholic girls who don't want to kill the kids. What we don't like are condescending octogenarians who don't know when to get out of the ring. Or when to shut up."
Slate's Will Saletan has a piece in Slate exploring the angle and talks it up in this NPR segment.
From the Slate piece:
Saletan conveniently omits the fact that the Democrats did admit that they opposed Pryor for his "deeply held beliefs." It probably speaks more to liberal relativist ignorance of the idea of a judge ruling according to law over personal belief than to anti-Catholicism, but the use of those words opened the Democrats up to those accusations.
Later:
No it's not. Not if some Democrats actually carry a bias against believing Catholics. Democrats need to argue about the Constitution and not about beliefs, or they deserve any "religious test" criticism they receive. The problem is that they lose any constitutional debate, especially where Roe v. Wade is concerned.
Father Neuhaus writes about the potential Catholic majority on the Supreme Court and natural law.
I recently read a piece (unfortunately I cannot remember by whom it was written) that conjectured that the large Catholic presence on the Supreme Court may have precisely to do with the Catholic embrace of natural law, which gives these judges a better conceptual framework to "think with the mind of the founders" (to twist a phrase Catholics may find familiar). The founders certainly had natural law in mind when they wrote and amended the Constitution, and modernists who do not even believe that such a law exists - let alone that it can be known - are much more prone to get important things wrong like Roe V. Wade. Wouldn't it be fascinating to see a discussion of natural law in a confirmation hearing? That'll be the day...
City Journal (fast becoming one of my favorite journals) has an excellent though somewhat depressing piece by Nicole Gelinas about the use of eminent domain in failed urban renewal projects.
[...]
But bulldozers and central planning didn’t sa