Author: Deal Hudson
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Reading Myself Into the Church
Deal W. Hudson Reading, said Saint Josemaría Escrivá, has made many a saint. In my own case it has merely made a convert, but has led me more deeply into the mystery that is the Church. Thomas Merton, we recall from his autobiography, Seven Storey Mountain, was started on his road to the Church by…
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How to Handle Pelosi?
Deal W. Hudson Today Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco spoke publicly in defense of marriage in Washington, DC in spite of a letter from Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi asking him not to. She wrote her Archbishop not to show “disdain and hate towards LGBT persons” by speaking at a National Organization for Marriage march to…
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When Catholics Started to Lose Their Cultural Clout
Deal W. Hudson Catholics of my generation probably remember only dimly the furor provoked among Catholics by films in the 1950s directed by Luis Bunuel, “Los Olivados (1950); Roberto Rossellini, “The Miracle” (1951);Otto Preminger, “The Moon is Blue” (1953; Elia Kazan, “Baby Doll” (1956); Roger Vadim, “And God Created Woman” (1956); and Billy Widler, “Some…
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Sen. Rubio Attempts to Lead on Immigration
Deal W. Hudson Published May 14, 2013 Last week I signed, with several dozen other “conservatives,” a letter supporting the immigration legislation supported by Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. My decision to sign was motivated, in part, by the ridiculous attacks on Sen. Rubio, such as that of the venerable National Review, which was once…
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Who Cares If We Know the Ending?
Deal W. Hudson Why are we able to enjoy a movie that we have already seen, or tell a well-known story whose outcome we already know? Cyprian and I sat down over the weekend to watch the 2004 film, Miracle, starring Kurt Russell, about the 1978 victory of the US hockey team over the Soviets…
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Real Presence Fallen Flat
Deal W. Hudson My wife, also a Catholic convert, has said several times over the years, “The Church makes it so hard to be a Catholic.” If she was really precise she would have said, “I go to Mass and it looks, sounds, and feels perfunctory — there is no attempt at ‘celebration’, which is…
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Obama and Infanticide
Deal W. Hudson Published July 2, 2008 Infanticide is becoming a touchy subject for Barack Obama. So much so that his supporters either deny that their candidate ever voted against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, or they describe his votes as “procedural,” as if Obama never really opposed providing medical treatment for infants who…
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Pro-Life Voters and the Culture
Deal W Hudson “Social conservatism” has long been the Good Housekeeping brand in pro-life politics. Its usefulness, however, has come to an end, not because the moral commitments it signifies are any less important, but because politics is about attracting voters. A new language that in no way compromises the principles of life, marriage, and…
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Taste Is No Mere Luxury
Deal W. Hudson I have not looked at Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales for years until I started reading Peter Ackyrod’s new “retelling” in a sparkling prose which maintains the spirit and tone of the original Middle English verse. As Chaucer’s narrator describes his fellow pilgrims in the General Prologue, I was taken aback by two straightforward…
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The Self-Examination of a Politically Active Catholic
Deal W. Hudson Over the last four national elections, I have led outreach efforts to Catholic voters, specifically those who attend Mass regularly. During each campaign, I stressed the political importance of the settled, or non-negotiable issues as taught by the Catholic Church: opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage, euthanasia, fetal stem cell experimentation, and religious…
Deal W. Hudson 