It Gets Better for Christians: NALT Project Launched

“War Is the Health of a Totalitarian State. And Peace Is Its Disease” (Norman Mailer): Important Commentary on Syria and U.S.

Robert C. Koehler at Common Dreams:

War, of course, always starts out like this: as bright and hopeful as the sunrise. It’s almost beyond belief to me that we can have such a clean, bloodless national conversation about a new war in the Middle East while the old wars continue to fester and our moral wounds still haunt us. The image of George Bush on the aircraft carrier in his padded flight suit, proclaiming “mission accomplished,” is one the 21st century’s most bitterly ironic icons.

Kiva, Strathmore University, and Opus Dei: Another Reader Response, "We Don't Want Homosexuals and Homosexual Sympathisers Funding Africans"

James Goodman on the Five Most Terrifying Words in the Bible

James Goodman

A moment ago, I linked to an outstanding posting by Frank at Letters to the Catholic Right, in which he focuses on a much-discussed sermon in which Pope Francis states,

U.S. Leaders and Syria: What If They Gave a War and Nobody Came?

As John Nichols reports today for The Nation, Democratic representative Alan Grayson of Florida recently stated, "Nobody wants this [i.e., war on Syria] except the military-industrial complex. Nichols notes that both a recent Pew Research survey and a Washington Post/ABC News poll show high levels of opposition in the American public to a military strike on Syria.

Kiva, Strathmore University, and Opus Dei, The Rest of the Story: Readers Respond

Three days ago, I published a lengthy piece updating readers of Bilgrimage on the controversy that has arisen after the charitable non-profit Kiva chose to partner with an Opus Dei-founded university in Kenya, Strathmore. Here are two of several outstanding responses that readers of that piece have left in the thread of comments following my posting: 

Frank at Letters to the Catholic Right: Pope Francis Speaks, Catholic Right Responds, "Nothing New," Rinse, Repeat

Yesterday, I took a look at William J. Dohar's recent essay at Religion Dispatches which examines the implication of Pope Francis's question, "Who am I to judge?," for gay priests. I noted that Dohar finds that no U.S. Catholic bishop has been willing to stand with Francis and say unambiguously, "You know, the pope’s right.  Who are we to judge?"