Every year we read about the War on Christmas. The mainstream media love to cover stories about those Scrooges who ban the use of any specific greetings related to Christmas and the old curmudgeons who complain about the same.
Don't hate the player, hate the fans
I suppose if there’s a dark underside to being a sports fan it’s that it allows us to indulge our capacity for irrational hatred. It’s a really disconcerting thing when you stop to think about it.
The other M. Hemingway…
Yes, I’m the guy married to the Divine Mrs. Z. (Yes, that’s a picture from our wedding day.) I’ll be helping out around these parts for a few weeks while Brad is doing his best to ace a series of brutal law school exams. We’re pulling for you Brad!
Christian survivalists?
The Washington Post has a feature headlined “A muscular, die-hard spirituality: Self-sufficient Christians prepare for Second Coming or for life after global disaster.” So you can imagine that I expected the story to be about that.
Flawed tribute in South Bend
We received a note the other day from a priest asking us to call attention to a South Bend Tribune editorial marking the retirement of Bishop John D’Arcy from the Catholic Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend. Even though GetReligion focuses on news reports, not editorial, this correspondent thought we would appreciate the respectful and balanced tone in this piece — especially considering the bishop’s role in the events surrounding President Barack Obama’s visit to the University of Notre Dame to received an honorary doctorate in law, in clear violation of a policy statement by the U.S. Catholic bishops.
Some questions have answers
Those of you who have missed the posts of our Elizabeth Evans should head on over to Reuters FaithWorld where she has written about clergy sexual misconduct. She digs a bit deeper and wider on the topic than most treatments of the issue.
In praise of beauty
Caught up in the holiday weekend’s spirit of thankfulness, I want to reach back to last weekend and Pope Benedict’s meeting with artists from around the world in the Sistine Chapel, which was covered by The New York Times’ Rachel Donadio:
This reporter gives thanks that ....
It’s Thanksgiving, of course. So I would like to give thanks that I was not in Laurie Goodstein’s shoes the other day when she heard about the upcoming “Manhattan Declaration” announcement — click here for details — and then got the news that she could only write 570 words about this very complex ecumenical statement.
