Maureen Wittman has observations about a confirmation she attended in the Grand Rapids diocese

Reader Lance wonders about the Scalabrini Fathers, who are taking his parish under their wing. Anyone?

Reader/seminarian Dennis has a bleg:

I’m working on a talk for an adult audience about the Church’s relationship with science, and, in particular, the Galileo affair. I know the basics of the incident, and that Galileo was never tortured or imprisoned or executed, and that his fault lay in claiming something was true which seemed to contradict revelation and for which he did not have sufficient evidence. No problem.

What I’m looking for is a basic text to help me pull together the details. Something written for a popular audience, so that at the end of the talk, I could recommend it to the parishioners at the Thursday night adult ed class. It would be nice also if it talked about the contributions the Church has made to science. Things like Mendel’s discovery of genetics, or the precise measuring tools and timepieces created by Jesuits and Benedictines.

The talk is part of an apologetics series at the parish, and we’re starting with an apologetic to the general culture. That evening, we’ll have two presentations: me on Galileo, and one of the priests on the Crusades. You know how people are when they attack Christianity, particularly Catholicism: "Well, what about the way you Catholics killed Galileo to protect superstition and ignorance because he believed in science?" or "Well, what about the way you Catholics started the Crusades to kill people in the name of God and steal their land?"

85-year old Salesian Father John Malloy, whom some of you will remember from his strong words for Nancy Pelosi,..has a blog!