In Catholic News: A Whole Lot of Stuff for Your Stockings

Also in Catholic news during this week of preparation for Christmas joy:

Tom Tomorrow on the Bipartisan Adventures of Simpson and Bowles

"That's why we now spend our time giving speeches--for which we are paid $40,000 apiece--on the need to cut Social Security and Medicare". . . 

Brilliant political commentary from Tom Tomorrow of "This Modern World," via The Nation.  (Clicking will enlarge the cartoon.)

Richard Pierard's Advice to Evangelicals: "Get Off the Abortion Issue"

Richard Pierard

Richard Pierard thinks that anti-abortion evangelicals have badly overplayed their hand with the "pro-life" issue: 

John Atcheson on Marlboro Man Myths (Plus Papal Preferences in Cigarettes)

John Atcheson thinks it would be dangerous for America to return to the mythology of Marlboro Man and his rugged individualism and hostility to gubmint.  Three of the Marlboro Men, after all, died of lung cancer.  And the Republicans peddle such retrograde mythology and the hard and fast gender roles it comprises primarily to distract us from their determination to help the über-rich pick more money from the pockets of the rest of us.

Leonardo Boff on Paths: Finding Them, Walking Together as "Solidarians in the Same Destiny"

An Advent reflection I find beautiful and challenging--Leonardo Boff on paths, on finding and putting our feet into them:

Political Musings: Fascism under the Skin and Crazy Still Walking and Talking after Elections

On our various trips to research Steve's family's roots in Germany (and Luxembourg and the Bohemian and Moravian parts of the former Austrian Empire), one of the most chilling documents from World War II we've encountered was a picture in a photo album of a cousin of his in Baden.  The cousin lives in the small village outside Karlsruhe from which some of Steve's ancestors emigrated to America after the revolution in Baden in the late 1840s.

Faith Seeking Understanding: Catholic Commentary on the State of the Church, Advent 2012

A Monday-morning smorgasbord of smart, thoughtful statements I've read in recent days about matters Catholic: