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During this Christmas holiday, I’ve been reading Anthony Gottlieb’s breezy and enjoyable history of modern philosophy, entitled The Dream of Enlightenment.
Throughout his treatment of such figures as Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, and Voltaire, Gottlieb reveals his own rather strong bias in favor of the rationalism and anti-supernaturalism advocated by these avatars of modern thought.
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Following is the homily at the Cathedral Parish of St. Raphael in Madison given at Christmas Midnight Mass by Msgr. James Bartylla, diocesan administrator.
There is often an accusation made against Christianity that is called the “Scandal of Particularity”. In its essence, it emphasizes the difficulty of believing a single man (Jesus) could be the Savior of all mankind and the only way to the Father.
It argues that it is “unreasonable” or “fanciful” to believe in this salvific universality of Jesus Christ. After all, he was born in Bethlehem, during a census by Caesar Augustus, under the governorship of Quirinius, and raised in Nazareth? How could the Savior of the whole world, including Rome, Greece, Persia, and Africa, and for all time, be from little Bethlehem?
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As the saying goes, “Politics and religion don’t mix.” Although this cliché is espoused by many, you will not hear it from Pope Francis.
On the contrary, the leader of the Catholic Church firmly teaches that our Gospel-based faith has a wealth of wisdom to offer the often corrupt world of politics. And that it is our duty to strive to infuse that wisdom into the body politic.
Just before the New Year, our house looked similar to many other homes.
Christmas lights decorated the tree in our living room. Children were busy with new toys and games. Cookies and other goodies often made their way into little searching hands and mouths.
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Over the Christmas break, I spent a fair amount of time binge-watching Jordan Peterson videos. For those not in the know, Peterson is not the latest hip-hop sensation. He is a psychology professor from Toronto who has made a rather substantial splash as a culture-commentator and public intellectual, largely through appearances on social media.
Many atheists and agnostics today insistently argue that it is altogether possible for non-believers in God to be morally upright. They resent the implication that the denial of God will lead inevitably to complete ethical relativism or nihilism.
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We celebrate Holy Family Sunday on December 30 between Christmas and the feast of the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God.
Holy Family Sunday reminds us that the infant Jesus was raised in a family. Under Mary and Joseph’s guidance, in his human nature, Jesus grew in wisdom, understanding, and knowledge.
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Dr. John P. Joy |
This is the final installment of this series of essays commemorating the 50th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s Creed of the People of God. The final portions of the creed touch on the Mass and the Eucharist, time, and eternity.
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There is a common, and I’ll admit somewhat understandable, interpretation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy that sees the great work as a celebration of the virtues of the Shire, that little town where the hobbits dwell in quiet domesticity.
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Fifty years ago on Christmas Eve (December 24, 1968), the crew of Apollo 8 entered lunar orbit and began circling the moon — the first time in history for humans to visit another world.
That evening, the crew’s astronauts Bill Anders, Jim Lovell, and Frank Borman, transmitted a live television broadcast including spectacular pictures of the moon just 60 miles below them, and of the Earth — a quarter of a million miles away.
