The Joy of the Truth

Bill Steigerwald is urging Barak Obama to legalize the international sale of human organs. In his arguments, he claims that medical ethicists live in ivory towers, out of touch with real-world suffering. The reality is that utilitarians who devalue transcendent goods and embrace only tangible goods live in a fantasy world and ignore the devastation that their derision of human dignity brings to our culture. Continue reading

Ok, “cheaters never prosper” is a cliche. But so is “every law was meant to be broken,” yet we hear this saying much more often – in word or idea. Our country is currently suffering from the greedy cheating of people associated with the Annie Mae and Freddie Mac companies. In 2002 we heard about a number of scholars who had plagiarized or otherwise misrepresented themselves and their scholarly work… Continue reading

In our diocesan parenting program, “Teaching the Way of Love,” one of the points we make is that we need to teach our children how to receive love well in addition to teaching them how to give love. I tell the story of Christmas at my parents’ home and at the home of my in-laws.

At my wife’s family’s Christmas celebration the kids are turned loose at a designated… Continue reading

I just listened to Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s program, “The Clown is Always Right” (an episode of Life is Worth Living). Archbishop Sheen proposes that clowns hold within their characters the ideal balance of seriousness and humor. He then describes in modern culture the division of classes, some of which take the world too seriously and have no humor and others how live only to enjoy life and take nothing seriously… Continue reading

A couple of weeks ago I attended a high school senior recital of a friend of ours. Most of the music was classical (used in the broad sense of the term), but at the end one student played a blues piece. While I love blues, something struck me about the contrast it played against the other pieces. It struck me that when classical music is played right (as it definitely… Continue reading