Category: Columns

On
Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk

Editing our genes? We must be vigilant about use of new techniques

A number of serious diseases are known to occur because of defects or mutations in our DNA.

Curing such diseases could in principle be carried out by rewriting the DNA to fix the mutated base pairs. Yet until recently, scientists have remained largely stymied in their attempts to directly modify genes in a living animal.

New gene-editing technique

Findings described in the March 30, 2014, issue of Nature Biotechnology, however, reveal that a novel gene-editing technique, known as CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats), can be used successfully in mice to reverse disease symptoms for a liver defect known as type I tyrosinemia. In humans, this potentially fatal ailment affects about one in 100,000 people.

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On
Fr. Robert Barron

The danger of soft atheism

A very instructive exchange between Gary Gutting, a philosophy professor at Notre Dame, and Philip Kitcher, a philosophy professor at Columbia, just appeared in The New York Times.

Kitcher describes himself as a proponent of “soft atheism,” an atheism distinct from the polemical variety espoused by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Unlike his harsher colleagues, Kitcher is willing to admit that religion can play an ethically useful role in a predominantly secular society.

I would like to draw attention to one move made in this interview, since it shows one of the fundamental misunderstandings of religion common among atheists.

Plurality of religious doctrines

Prompted by Gutting, Kitcher admits that he finds all religious doctrine incredible. He points to the plurality of religious doctrines: Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, animists, etc., hold to radically different accounts of reality, the divine, human purpose, etc.

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On
Chris Lee

The danger of soft atheism

A very instructive exchange between Gary Gutting, a philosophy professor at Notre Dame, and Philip Kitcher, a philosophy professor at Columbia, just appeared in The New York Times.

Kitcher describes himself as a proponent of “soft atheism,” an atheism distinct from the polemical variety espoused by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Unlike his harsher colleagues, Kitcher is willing to admit that religion can play an ethically useful role in a predominantly secular society.

I would like to draw attention to one move made in this interview, since it shows one of the fundamental misunderstandings of religion common among atheists.

Plurality of religious doctrines

Prompted by Gutting, Kitcher admits that he finds all religious doctrine incredible. He points to the plurality of religious doctrines: Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, animists, etc., hold to radically different accounts of reality, the divine, human purpose, etc.

Read More
On
John Huebscher

Voter ID laws do more harm than good

Eye on the Capitol by John Huebscher

The “principle of proportionality” is a useful tool for evaluating laws and public policy. It suggests that the remedy should not create more problems than it solves.

Put another way, the principle means: “Thou shalt not use a sledgehammer to kill a fly.” Moreover, in assessing whether a law’s impact is proportionate, we must take special care to weigh its impact on those who have a special claim on our concern: the poor and marginalized in our society.

The principle of proportionality can be quite helpful when applied to proposals to require law-abiding citizens to produce a photo ID card prior to voting in Wisconsin.

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On
John Huebscher

Voter ID laws do more harm than good

Eye on the Capitol by John Huebscher

The “principle of proportionality” is a useful tool for evaluating laws and public policy. It suggests that the remedy should not create more problems than it solves.

Put another way, the principle means: “Thou shalt not use a sledgehammer to kill a fly.” Moreover, in assessing whether a law’s impact is proportionate, we must take special care to weigh its impact on those who have a special claim on our concern: the poor and marginalized in our society.

The principle of proportionality can be quite helpful when applied to proposals to require law-abiding citizens to produce a photo ID card prior to voting in Wisconsin.

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On
Fr. Robert Barron

The field hospital is open

By now everyone in the world knows that Pope Francis offered a lengthy and wide-ranging interview to the editor of Civilta Cattolica, which was subsequently published in 16 Jesuit-sponsored journals from a variety of countries.

To judge by some media coverage, the Church is in the midst of a moral and doctrinal revolution, led by a pope bent on dragging the old institution into the modern world.

Read what pope actually said

I might recommend that everyone read what Pope Francis actually said. For what he said is beautiful, lyrical, spirit-filled, and in its own distinctive way, revolutionary.

The first question to which the pope responded in this interview is simple: “Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio (his given name)?” After a substantial pause, he said, “a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.”

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On
Fr. Robert Barron

The joy of evangelizing

An emergency tends to focus one’s mind and energies and to clarify one’s priorities.

If a dangerous fire breaks out in a home, the inhabitants thereof will lay aside their quarrels, postpone their other activities, and together get to the task of putting out the flames. If a nation is invaded by an aggressor, politicians will quickly forget their internal squabbling and put off their legislative programs in order to work together for the shared purpose of repulsing the enemy.

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On
Fr. Robert Barron

How saintly popes modeled virtue

On April 27, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (Pope John XXIII) and Karol Jozef Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II) were recognized as saints of the Catholic Church, and may God be praised for it!

No one with the slightest amount of historical sensibility would doubt that these men were figures of enormous significance and truly global impact.

But being a world historical personage is not the same as being a saint; otherwise neither Thérèse of Lisieux, nor John Vianney, nor Benedict Joseph Labré would be saints.

What is a saint?

So what is it that made these two men worthy particularly of canonization? Happily, the Church provides rather clear and objective criteria for answering this question. A saint is someone who lived a life of “heroic virtue” on earth and who is now living the fullness of God’s life in heaven.

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