Category: Culture
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Millennial Danger
Deal W. Hudson January 1, 1998 In the winter of 1980, I faced my first class at Mercer University in Atlanta, an “Introduction to Religion” course for ten students in the evening program. The brightest of them was already well-established as the financial controller of a hotel on Peachtree Street. Two decades later, she teaches…
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Sed Contra: A New Year’s Wish
Deal W. Hudson January 1, 1999 My “Notes Toward Unity” (Sed Contra, October 1998) elicited more response than any column I have written in the past four years. Catholics around the nation are frustrated; they want their voice heard in the culture. More and more Catholics are tired of being invisible. We can only hope…
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Sed Contra: The U.S. Catholic Conference Strikes Again
Deal W. Hudson December 1, 2000 Catholics must wonder sometimes why the U.S. Catholic Conference (USCC) exists. On October 16, Catholic News Service (CNS) of the USCC issued a story with the headline, “Gore sees hope for ‘common ground’ movement on abortion.” Written by Patricia Zapor, based on an interview with the vice president, the…
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Sed Contra: What’s All the Fuss?
Deal W. Hudson November 1, 2000 On the heels of Cardinal Ratzinger’s letter to bishops, Dominus Iesus (Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church), comes the predictable chorus of boos. Once again, the papacy of John Paul II is accused of destroying post-Vatican II progress toward genuine interreligious dialogue by affirming the…
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Music: Our Golden Age
Deal W. Hudson October 1, 2000 The golden age of the Broadway musical may be long past, but never has the musical been so gloriously recorded as in the present. Those who only know and treasure the familiar original cast recordings of shows like Brigadoon, Oklahoma and West Side Story have a great treat in store.…
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Sed Contra: Reading Madeline St. John
Deal W. Hudson September 1, 2000 Crisis readers, I am sure, will want to know about the recent publication by Carroll & Graf of three novels by Madeleine St John (pronounced “sin-gin”), an Anglican and a Londoner, of Australian birth. St John’s work deserves to be widely read by Catholics who are in the habit…
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Sed Contra: Mortimer J. Adler, Catholic
Deal W. Hudson July 1, 2000 The most influential American philosopher of the 20th century was received into the Church this past December. Those familiar with the trajectory of Mortimer Adler’s work, not just the Great Books Program, should not be surprised. Born December 28, 1902, Mortimer has been a Catholic philosopher all his long…
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Sed Contra: Gore’s Catholic Strategy
Deal W. Hudson June 1, 2000 Vice President Gore had the opportunity to address the Catholic Press Association at its May convention in Baltimore, Maryland. He decided not to at the last minute, but I couldn’t help thinking about what he might have said. Here’s how I imagined the question-and-answer period following his speech: During…
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Sed Contra: Stem Cells Equal Baby Parts
Deal W. Hudson May 1, 2000 A sense of tragedy helps to keep a culture moral. Tragedy reminds us of the suffering we cannot alleviate, the finite boundaries we must not cross, no matter how tempting the horizon. In the ancient world, tragic boundaries were policed by the gods so that the men who acted…
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Sed Contra: Catholic Journalism As If Beauty Really Mattered
Deal W. Hudson March 1, 2000 Readers may have noticed that I added an explanatory note to the review section. I have been asked if this is a “disclaimer,” meant to disassociate myself from our reviewers’ opinions. That was certainly not my intent. I deemed the note necessary by the letters I have received from…
Deal W. Hudson 