open book

Aaron Neville and St. Jude

An interesting article from the NYTimes

It's been a tough year for Catholicism, so Aaron Neville's active devotion to the church is welcome news. Nuns and priests attend his feel-good concerts, where free rope rosary bracelets are handed out by the thousands. Rock 'n' roll has deep roots in the culture of the mostly Protestant black churches in the United States, but rarely has a pop star so closely identified himself with the musical traditions of Catholicism.

Still more politics and religion

Jim Wallis of Sojourners had a Sunday op-ed in the NYTimes on putting God back into politics

God is always personal, but never private. The Democrats are wrong to restrict religion to the private sphere — just as the Republicans are wrong to define it solely in terms of individual moral choices and sexual ethics. Allowing the right to decide what is a religious issue would be both a moral and political tragedy.

Not everyone in America has the same religious values, of course. And many moral lessons are open to interpretation. But by withdrawing into secularism, the Democrats deprive Americans of an important debate.

And today, the Times prints letters in response.

Speaking of Americans and religion

Here's some of the great deal of ink spilled or bytes broadcast about Howard Dean's profession of faith.

On the eve of the Christmas holidays, Dean went public with thoughts about God -- he believes in Him. While the Lord is probably relieved that the Episcopalian turned Congregationalist-almost-a-Unitarian believes in Him, Dean's pandering had more to do with strengthening his position in the South after focus groups pulled together by his campaign revealed discomfort with a man of little faith.

"[Dean's] stump speeches weren't working with the groups," says a Washington-based Democratic Party consultant familiar with the focus group study that took place in early December. "When asked, they wanted to have a sense that the candidate shared their values, and in the South that means a candidate who believes in God, the Bible and the family."

Speaking of the American Spectator website, I predict that I am going to be consistently amused by Shawn Macomber's daily reports from New Hampshire over the next month

PERHAPS THE MOST INTERESTING thing about the long event was Teresa Heinz Kerry's inability to mask her boredom. While her husband was talking she sauntered out back and stared off into the parking lot. She slumped in a chair, head in hands, looking at the floor. She whispered back and forth with Time magazine's Joe Klein.

One of the last questions Kerry fielded was whether he would take month-long vacations while president, as George W. Bush has done. Kerry answered a plain "no," and looked confused when the audience broke out into raucous laughter. Teresa had come to life, and was nodding crazily, "yes, yes, yes." Kerry lost his smile for the first time in three hours.

"No, really, the answer is no," he said. But Teresa just kept bobbing, and the audience kept laughing, and John Kerry frowned, as if he couldn't decide whether to draw his sword or his quill.

Kitna Caps

A football player's cap proves a windfall for a Catholic bookstore in Cincinnati

The NFL told the Bengals Kitna was in violation of a rule requiring all merchandise worn by players or other team personnel to be approved and licensed by the football league. The cross cap was not a licensed item.

The news hit hard in the Queen City, and upon learning of the NFL's decision, owners of The Catholic Shop in a northern suburb decided they would begin selling the caps for $5 a pop. Since Dec. 22, they've sold more than 4,000 of the black caps with a white embroidered cross, and they anticipate selling up to 1,000 a day "as long as we can get them in," said Catholic Shop co-owner Dan Giroux.

Baghdad Blogs

Eve has the list. Invaluable.

Our National Creed

David Brooks sorts it out on the NYTimes op-ed page

George W. Bush was born into an Episcopal family and raised as a Presbyterian, but he is now a Methodist. Howard Dean was baptized Catholic, and raised as an Episcopalian. He left the church after it opposed a bike trail he was championing, and now he is a Congregationalist, though his kids consider themselves Jewish.

Wesley Clark's father was Jewish. As a boy he was Methodist, then decided to become a Baptist. In adulthood he converted to Catholicism, but he recently told Beliefnet .com, "I'm a Catholic, but I go to a Presbyterian church."

What other country on earth would have three national political figures with such peripatetic religious backgrounds? In most of the world, faith-hopping of this sort is simply unheard of. Yet in the United States, we simply take it for granted that people will move through different phases in the course of their personal spiritual journeys, and we always have.

In case you were wondering

Here's the list of religion textbooks for parishes and schools that have been found to be in conformity with the Catechism by the Committee charged with such things.

(It's a pdf file, btw)

Speaking of such matters, allow me to bleg for a moment - high school religion teachers, drop me a line, if you would. Tell me what texts you're using and how you feel about them, okay?

Books, books, books

From Books and Culture, John Wilson's list of best books of 2003, plus the worst

and What he's looking forward to reading in 2004

St. Thomas Becket

Position Open: AntiChrist

Carl Olson in NRO

Another candidate for the position of "The Antichrist" has met his end.

It wasn't too long ago that Saddam Hussein was considered by some Bible-prophecy students to possibly be the final "man of sin" and global dictator. As late as March of this year, fundamentalist pastor and "end-times" buff Irvin Baxter insisted that Saddam Hussein was Abaddon, or Apollyon, the "Destroyer" spoken of in Revelation 9:11. "Iraq fits like hand in glove," he claimed, predicting that Saddam's country would soon become the vortex of supernatural evil. Various prophecy-oriented websites explained in elaborate detail how the Butcher of Baghdad might rise from the ruin of the first Persian Gulf War and lead a jihad against Israel, plunging the world into the final cosmic conflict between good and evil, culminating in the battle of Armageddon.