A reader sent me this link, to a fascinating interview with Matthew Weiner, the genius behind my latest obsession, “Mad Men”. (After last night’s pitch-perfect season finale, I can’t believe I now to have to wait nine months for the next season to start. Argh. The episode was set during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and…

A couple years ago, I had a strange experience while giving out communion at mass: one of the congregants came up wearing a tee shirt from Hooters. Some people, of course, will wear anything to church. Which brings me to political buttons. Shortly after Labor Day, I began to notice a few people coming up…

“Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or willful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution,…

This may not sound like a big deal, but it is. It’s a proposal — passed overwhelmingly by the Synod of Bishops — to admit women, formally, to the ministry of lector. Among other things, this is significant because lector has historically been one of the stepping stones to Holy Orders. (Though the Synod was…

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