The bishop vs the president

July 13, 2021 By Sean P. Dailey

My bishop is at it again. Thomas John Paprocki, bishop of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois, has written an article for the August, 2021, issue of First Things, “Eucharistic Coherence,” about pro-choice Catholic politicians—specifically, President Joe Biden—and the worthy reception of Communion. The name of the article is a bit of a misnomer, since there isn’t a lot of coherence here. It’s a jumble of canon law, moral theology, and Republican talking points. Well, it’s all Republican talking points,... Read more

A most unselfish way of giving pleasure

July 7, 2021 By Sean P. Dailey

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Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain New York: HarperCollins, 2017 (First Harper Perennial Edition) 312 pages, $8.99 “I’m asked a lot what the best thing about cooking for a living is,” Anthony Bourdain writes at the beginning of Kitchen Confidential. He gives a number of conventional reasons—“to be part of the subculture,” a “secret society with its own language and customs,” “making something good with one’s hands”—before he gets to the chief reason: It can be, at times, the purest, most... Read more

There is more to a police procedural than catching bad guys

June 30, 2021 By Sean P. Dailey

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Line of Duty (2012 – ) Created by Jed Mercurio The more I watch police procedurals, the more I think any competent creator or director can make a decent police procedural. But making one that is great, as in timeless, is a high art. There is more to a police procedural than solving a crime and catching bad guys. More than gruesome murders and gathering evidence. In other words, there is more to a great police procedural than just procedure.... Read more

Blood cries out: the Confederate flag in the U.S. Capitol

January 7, 2021 By Sean P. Dailey

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Take a good, hard look at the photo that accompanies this article. That flag. Carried by that man. In the United States Capitol on Wednesday. This is only one of thousands of pictures or videos from Wednesday’s coup attempt, when a massive mob of supporters of President Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol, interrupting a joint session of Congress that had convened to certify the 2020 presidential election. These terrorists (and yes, it was an act of terrorism) broke windows, occupied both... Read more

Dale Ahlquist is on a mission – sadly, it’s the wrong mission

November 21, 2020 By Sean P. Dailey

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Joe Biden won. Donald Trump, who once mocked the president-elect as “sleepy Joe…hiding in his basement,” is himself now holed up in the White House, mostly unseen, except on Twitter, where he indulges in debunked conspiracy theories about the election. Mr. Biden, meanwhile, is preparing for his swearing-in on January 20, and is doing the one thing that Mr. Trump has failed to do since last spring: working on a plan to deal with the global coronavirus pandemic. And Mr.... Read more

Begging—and answering—the question

October 13, 2020 By Sean P. Dailey

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A few days ago I published a piece in which I explained how a Catholic may vote for Joe Biden, or any other pro-choice politician, with a clear conscience. Without violating Catholic Church teaching. But it does beg the question, “Ok, fine, I can vote for Mr. Biden with a clear conscience. But why would I? Abortion—ending it, I mean—is important to me. Just because I may vote for a pro-choice politician does not mean I necessarily want to, or... Read more

Begging—and answering—the question

August 13, 2020 By Sean P. Dailey

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Listen to the Church, not LifeSite, when casting your vote

August 9, 2020 By Sean P. Dailey

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LifeSite News, the allegedly Catholic pro-life webpage, wants you to vote Republican this fall; to re-elect President Trump. To that end, it published an article in late July asserting, “No Catholic can vote for Joe Biden.” Mr. Biden is two things: Catholic and pro-choice. So, the Catholic Right will be working doubly hard this year to make sure Catholics do the right thing (in the Catholic Right’s estimation) and vote for Mr. Trump. LifeSite is leading the charge. Mr. Biden’s... Read more

No time like the present for ‘Stranger Things’

July 6, 2020 By Sean P. Dailey

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WARNING: Spoilers Stranger Things starts with a top-secret government lab at which an experiment goes awry. A human test subject escapes—along with something else from an alternate dimension to which a portal has accidentally been opened. Meanwhile, in a basement on the other side of the fictitious town of Hawkins, Indiana, four middle school-aged boys are wrapping up a day-long game of Dungeons & Dragons. Three of them get on their bikes to ride home. They split up and one of... Read more

Fr. Frank Pavone’s Satanic Beatitudes

February 23, 2020 By Sean P. Dailey

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It is common for Christian conservatives to tout the Ten Commandments as their ideal roadmap for living a Godly life. But as Kurt Vonnegut once noted, you never hear them mention a more recent, if paradoxical, guide: For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course, that’s Moses, not Jesus. I haven’t heard... Read more