"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."
Opinion > Science/Tech
Sunny Anand and the Hidden Pain of the Unborn
Annie Murphy Paul’s “The First Ache,” which appeared in last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, is the perfect companion piece to Austen Ivereigh’s “A Question of Empathy.” Both articles show how science is changing the terms of the abortion debate by “personifying” the unborn. In Paul’s fascinating article, she zeros in … READ MORE >
Opinion > Faith
GodSpy 2.0: Engaging Secular Culture
After a lengthy hiatus, today—Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent— we resume publishing GodSpy in a new daily blog/magazine format. It’s never been our style at GodSpy to do much public navel-gazing about what we’re doing. We prefer to let individual writers have their say, and focus on what’s happening in the outside world. So forgive me … READ MORE >
Opinion > Issues
The Pope, the ‘La Sapienza’ Protests, and the Death of Irony
The sad irony of the recent protests at Rome’s La Sapienza University that kept Pope Benedict XVI from speaking there was that they were based entirely on a mistake. Not only was the source of the protests—a 1990 quote about Galileo lifted from a speech given by then Cardinal Ratzinger—taken out-of-context, the statement wasn’t even made … READ MORE >
Opinion > Issues
Michael Massing: An Inconvenient Truth Teller
Two years ago for GodSpy I interviewed press critic Michael Massing about his Columbia Journalism Review essay that criticized the New York Times for ignoring public concern about the harmful effects of pop culture on children. In an interesting twist, Massing in the New York Review of Books this week cites a GodSpy interview in an essay … READ MORE >
News > Culture
Scholar sees a Catholic in the Bard
Another book arguing that Shakespeare’s plays were written from a Catholic perspective. It’s too bad, but until there’s hard evidence that Shakespeare was a practicing Catholic, the literary establishment will keep ignoring these books. The best one so far is Claire Asquith’s Shadowplay.
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Opinion > Culture
Norman Mailer, subversive conservative
Since Norman Mailer’s death two weeks ago there’s been an outpouring of eulogies about the “passing of the sixties generation.” As a Catholic, I’ve always been attracted to Mailer because he perfectly embodied the contradictions of that era. Part drunken orgy, part moral crusade, the sixties at times was like a distorted, bizarro … READ MORE >
Reviews > Books
The Dawkins Confusion
“The God Delusion is full of bluster and bombast, but it really doesn’t give even the slightest reason for thinking belief in God mistaken, let alone a ‘delusion.’ Dawkins seems to have chosen God as his sworn enemy. (Let’s hope for Dawkins’ sake God doesn’t return the compliment.)… You might say that some of his forays into philosophy are … READ MORE >
