Obama and american exceptionalism

I caught the second half of Obama's speech last night after I arrived back in West Virginia for a long weekend visit. There was certainly much to be impressed with, but theologian James K. A. Smith is right to point out the degree to which Obama's "new politics" …

My first Canadian health care experience

After living in Canada for the past two years, I finally had my first experience personally seeing a doctor (not counting trips with my wife for ultrasounds). Some facts:

Type of condition:

I scheduled my appointment for a non-life threatening condition, the kind of …

The Church and hope

In a discussion that eventually ended up dealing with fascism and the Catholic Church, a fairly well-known (infamous?) ex-Catholic blogger made the following claim punctuated by a personal comment directed to me:

Fascism accusations are a bit strange coming from …

Banjo comic

Transformed by Hope Conference

Ya'll may be interested to know about an exciting conference taking place in Chicago at the CTU and DePaul University at the end of October called "Transformed by Hope: Building a Catholic Social Theology for the Americas." It features sessions with Gustavo Gutierrez, …

"The right to life comes first"

A pet peeve of mine in discussions which attempt to "weigh" various life issues for their relative importance is when people use quotes from authoritative ecclesial sources which state that "the right to life comes first" in order to argue that abortion is "the most …

One down, over 700 to go...

Ecuador has told the Bush administration that it is refusing to renew the lease for the u.s. Air Force at Manta once it expires next year. Let's pray this is the beginning of an anti-imperial trend and that we will soon see the closure of the rest of the 700 or more …