Category: Culture
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Sed Contra: Hard Questions from the Playground
Deal W. Hudson March 1, 1998 I had just ventured into the Caribbean with ninety Crisis readers when the Clinton sex scandal hit the headlines. Even at a far distance, it was clear that the story was steering the media discussion into vulgar waters. I hoped my nine-year-old daughter would avoid hearing about Oval Office…
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Publisher’s Foreword: Education Crossroads
Deal W. Hudson February 1, 1998 What Follows in these pages is an ecumenical initiative of Crisis magazine and the Morley Institute to address what can be called nothing less than the “Crisis in education.” The opinions collected here demonstrate, in the spirit of John Paul II’s Ut Unum Sint, that people of good will…
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Sed Contra: A Dose of Sacred Discontent
Deal W. Hudson January 1, 1998 Thus we begin 1998, declared by our Holy Father as the year of the Holy Spirit. Surely, on this, the 25th anniversary of Roe v. Wade this country could use a strong infusion of that least understood person of the Blessed Trinity. There is no better way to get…
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Sed Contra: Catholic Bashing- The Reasons
Deal W. Hudson November 1, 1999 In the past six months, Bill Donohue and the 350,000 members of the Catholic League have been battling movies like Stigmata and Dogma, the smear campaign against Pius XII, and the sin against both faith and beauty at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Mayor Guiliani’s decision, surely prompted by…
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Sed Contra: John Wayne Grows Old
Deal W. Hudson October 1, 1999 He was the strongest man I ever knew. He had will-power of iron. The doctor said to stop smoking. After that day he never smoked another cigarette. Years later a different doctor banned alcohol—not another drink passed his lips for more than thirty years. Of all the money he…
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Sed Contra: Bringing Closure to Closure
Deal W. Hudson September 1, 1999 Maybe I’m hard-hearted. But, except for rare occasions, I don’t consider feelings newsworthy. I distinctly remember the period during the early ’70s when reporters began interviewing people about their emotional reactions to events rather than about the event itself “How did you feel when the plane burst into flames?”…
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Sed Contra: Baiting Pro-lifers
Deal W. Hudson June 1, 1999 In a recent Washington Post op-ed (May 6, 1999), Richard Cohen unveiled a strategy that pro-life forces will need to resist before the next presidential election. Like Cohen, abortion advocates are likely to bait pro-lifers over the next 18 months, preaching that their presidential candidates lack integrity if they…
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Sed Contra: The Strategy of Separation
Deal W. Hudson April 1, 1999 It is always a temptation to read the facts through the lens of the pervasive mood. Paul Weyrich, prominent among religious conservatives, has become progressively depressed over the fate of our culture. In February, Weyrich sent a four-page letter to conservatives. It is a much more thoughtful letter that…
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Sed Contra: Mercy for Mr. Mease
Deal W. Hudson March 1, 1999 The popular film Dead Man Walking sent more than a few ripples through the country on the topic of the death penalty. Despite the film’s well-taken point about God’s mercy, its sentimental appeal only convinced me that most arguments against the death penalty are ill-founded. Not the overt emotional…
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Sizing Up Our Seminaries
Deal W. Hudson February 1, 1999 They are beautiful and imposing when you actually see them. Sitting like castles, resplendent atop prime real estate, these Catholic seminaries make you wonder, “How many men fill up those buildings? What is being taught there? How can the diocese afford the heating bill?” You may have noticed them…
Deal W. Hudson 