2018

Alfie Evans & the Lethal Sympathy of Bioethics

Alfie Evans is dead. Deemed unfit, the child was sentenced to death by dehydration and suffocation. We shun the term life unworthy of life but embrace its content. We mask the odor of it with smiling phrases like “end of life care,” cruel details dismissed in the “best interest” of the patient sacrificed to force of law. The act of killing is rephrased in the argot of compassion. Language loosens constraint from the annihilation of life judged undeserving of the means to sustain it. Continue Reading
Jesus, the Male Gaze, & Laudato Sí

Every thoughtful Christian is invited to learn what is possible about Jesus in the context of first century Galilee and Judea. The much publicized Jesus Seminar, with its biases, stagecraft and colored-bead consensus, has skewed popular understanding of what we can grasp of the reality of Jesus of Nazareth in his own time and place. Nevertheless, respect for the tools of modern historical research keep us close to the words of Benedict XVI, spoken in November, 2012: “. . . faith is a continuous stimulus to seek, never to cease or acquiesce in the inexhaustible search for truth and reality.” Continue Reading
Passover Seder, Once More

The intention of the previous post was clear. Or so I thought. It was meant as an uncomplicated statement of fidelity to the male priesthood. The presence or absence of women at the Last Supper is not the critical issue. My allegiance is what it is because Jesus of Nazareth is Who He is: male, in body and bearing. Yet a surprising number of readers leap-frogged over the point and headed for the word seder. Some questioned the appropriateness of it in terms of days of the week and the Jewish calendar. Continue Reading
Holy Thursday, the Last Seder

On Holy Thursday, Catholic imagination turns to thoughts of a painting. You know the one: Da Vinci’s Last Supper. Painted over a door in the refectory of a Milanese monastery in 1498, the mural is the sum of theological reflection on Jesus’ last Passover meal. Our own mental image of the event—who was there? what did it look like?—is fixed on Da Vinci’s interpretation. But an interpretation is all that it is. Yet we grant to pictorial orchestration the veracity of revelation. Continue Reading
Portraits: No Politics, Just Pictures

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery unveiled the official presidential portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama last month. Much of the fun of it was in reading pundit responses to the paintings. I resisted adding to the chatter. But so many people emailed to ask what I thought of the duo, it is simpler to do one post than multiple repetitions. Besides, now that the heat of the moment has cooled is a good time to take a second look at the portraits unfiltered through a political lens. Continue Reading