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Maureen Mullarkey: Studio Matters

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After Long Silence

Studio Matters has been silent for several months. Permit me to say simply that this has been a hard season. Let me leave it at that. How to reboot? Where to start? Interests and concerns pile up, like snowpack layers on a mountainside. It seems only courteous to bore into the consolidated mass with optimism, something upbeat and smiling. But the ground under good cheer is unsteady. Allow me to forego the balancing act. If you would, let the words of Will Herberg set the tone. Continue Reading
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Pro-Palestinian Zealotry & Betrayal of The West

The West is betrayed by its own children. Since October 7, what we have seen in our streets and on campuses—the pro-Palestinian zealotry—is betrayal by those who are themselves the products of Western civilization. And have been schooled in its morbid addiction to cultural guilt. No one comes to Studio Matters for political discussion. There are mountains of that elsewhere. It is not my forte. But what we are witnessing in Israel today—and by portent here at home— looms larger than politics. Continue Reading
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Lepanto, Prayer, & The Game of Martyrs

Yesterday, October 27, was the day Pope Francis specified as a day of prayer for peace. My local parish, unencumbered by desire for moral clarity, invited all parishioners to a noon Mass followed by a special rosary for peace—in the abstract. Refusal to take sides burlesques the famed events of 1571 when Christendom kept churches open and prayed the rosary during the Battle of Lepanto. Yes, Pope Pius V enjoined all Christians to pray. But not for peace. He called them to pray that the Holy League would defeat the formidable Ottoman fleet. Continue Reading
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Cardinal Dolan & The Uses of Fatuity

Over Fourth of July weekend, parish bulletins throughout New York Archdiocese carried “Only in America,” an essay by Cardinal Timothy Dolan. It was a hail-fellow celebration of tolerance and religious liberty. But the meringue had been whisked up by the dialogue fairy, a bewitching crony of resurgent Islam. It began with the cardinal flashing his interfaith credentials. He had just received an award from the New York Board of Rabbis. This prompted one of those strenuously heartwarming reminiscences that are communion breakfast staples. Continue Reading

Notes on Our Pope of Peace

In Jorge Bergoglio’s lexicon, the words love and peace are vacant of meaning. Love dwindles down to nice feelings; peace shrinks to an ostrich-like refusal to acknowledge encroaching peril. On the flight back to Rome from Fatima, our shepherd delivered this reversal of reality to the court press:  An atheist said to me: “I am an atheist”; he didn’t say what nationality he was or where he came from.  He spoke in English, so I couldn’t tell and I didn’t ask him.  Continue Reading
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