Category: CatholiCity 2001
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M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable Success
Deal W. Hudson January 2, 2001 Shyamalan’s 1999 blockbuster, The Sixth Sense, took the movie-going public by surprise. His previous film, the brilliant but underappreciated Wide Awake (1998), had gone straight from lackluster reviews to video-store oblivion, so Shyamalan well-deserved the success and acclaim The Sixth Sense suddenly brought him. It made more than $250 million and has passed Raiders of…
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Postmodern Buchanan
Deal W. Hudson Two books read together can unexpectedly illuminate one another. That was my experience reading Pat Buchanan’s The Death of the West and a scholarly book written for public consumption-The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics, by Mark Lilla of the University of Chicago. There’s much in the Buchanan book I agree with, especially…
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Government Cannot Love
Deal W. Hudson In the midst of Valentine’s Day sentiment, it’s refreshing to hear someone who speaks plainly about love. At a White House briefing on February 6, Jim Towey, the new Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based & Community Initiatives, said something that ought to be heard–“government cannot love.” Towey, who is…
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It’s Not About Celibacy
Deal W. Hudson The recent pedophile problems in various U.S. Catholic dioceses, especially Boston, have led – predictably – to a new wave of questions about priestly celibacy. Let us be clear: There is no relation between the vow of priestly celibacy and the incidence of pedophilia among Catholic priests. How do I know this?…
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Harvard’s Catholic Voice
Deal W. Hudson I thought I knew something about Catholicism in Ivy League schools such as the venerable Harvard University. For example, if you wanted a Harvard professor outspoken about the Catholic faith you called Dr. Mary Ann Glendon of the Harvard Law School, or for the social justice perspective, Fr. J. Bryan Hehir, now…
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Public Lynching of the Priesthood
Deal W. Hudson Let me ask you a question: Do you really think that the media, and The Boston Globe, in particular, are really interested in strengthening the Church? I think we all know the answer to that. It should be very clear from the coverage of this scandal that the real object of the…
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A Time for Caution
Deal W. Hudson Passions are running high in response to the daily revelations of sexual misconduct by Catholic priests. I purposely avoid the word “pedophilia” because-in the rush to judgment-most of the instances of “sexual abuse” are being reported incorrectly as pedophilia. Pedophilia is sexual contact with a child who has not yet reached puberty,…
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Stop the Cheering
Deal W. Hudson I was stopped in the hallway at CNN yesterday by a well-known Catholic newscaster who asked me, “Why are the liberals cheering the fall of Cardinal Law?” This comment comes from someone who unabashedly describes himself as a “leftie.” I told him, sadly, that the cheering on the left is being echoed…
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10 Myths About Priestly Pedophilia
Deal W. Hudson Myth #1 – Catholic priests are more likely to be pedophiles than other groups of men. This is just plain false. There’s absolutely no evidence that priests are more likely to abuse children than are other groups of men. The use and abuse of children as objects for the sexual gratification of…
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How to Refute Arguments Against Priestly Celibacy
Deal W. Hudson 5 Arguments Against Priestly Celibacy and How to Refute Them 1. Allowing priests to marry would end pedophilia. It is completely untrue that celibate priests are more likely to be pedophiles than any other group of men, married or not. Pedophilia affects only 0.3 percent of the population of Catholic clergy, and…
Deal W. Hudson 