One of the great problems with modern society is its insistence on our rights. Hardly a single major issue—moral, social, economic, political—does not center on the question of rights. The right to state-sponsored university education. The right to marry whom one pleases. The right to life—or its nemesis, the right to choose. The right to a minimum wage. The right to self-fulfillment. I have wondered recently if the world wouldn’t be a better place…
The goal of parenting is not to raise children who are good. The goal of parenting is to raise children who know God. We must be wary of any parenting philosophy that assumes, however implicitly, that we hold sovereign sway in our children’s lives—as if we could rear children so perfect they are not in need of God’s grace. This is heresy of the very worst sort. Too many parenting approaches, even…
It was the stuff of literature, the dramatic juxtaposition of striking contrasts. I spent the morning at a ministry for children in one of the worst barrios in Bogotá. These children face horrors beyond what most of us would dare to dream exist in the world. All live in unimaginable squalor. They have little or no prospect for education or advancement. Many are the children of drug dealers and addicts. Others are the children…
In recent days the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace released an extended treatment of the world’s current economic state, “On Financial Reform.” An unofficial translation of the text is available on the Vatican’s website. What follows is a brief response to this statement, especially the section entitled “A Global Authority.” Much good can be said of the statement, especially its insistence on the need for mature ethical reflection on economic issues, sadly lacking…
Some of the most difficult verses in all of Scripture come in Paul’s second letter to Corinth: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (4:16-17, NIV). One wonders how Paul can so cavalierly dismiss the very real suffering he experienced. As he…
There has emerged the growing feeling that theological reflection is at best academic and at worst harmful to Christian community. What is needed is a return to the simple faith of children, we are told, devoid of intellectual pride and pedantry. Can’t we all simply love Jesus and leave it at that? That intellectual pursuits have inherent danger is clear enough—of the making of many books there is no end—but does this danger prohibit all…