Religion
It comes around once a year in the missal for the Catholic Mass, and the lector, standing before his or her neighbors to read the holy words very often exudes a palpable discomfort: Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord. For…
This year’s Portsmouth Institute conference changed things up a bit by eliminating the one or two presentations from Thursday and lining up three for Sunday. It definitely made sense to better utilize the second weekend day, although the talks came in such rapid succession that a second viewing with time to ruminate is in order.…
The Saturday sessions of the Portsmouth Institute‘s conference, this year, began with Clare Asquith, speaking on “As You Like It and the Elizabethan Catholic Dilemma”: Mrs. Asquith’s acute thesis is that Shakespeare wrote the play with a particular Catholic family in mind — indeed, perhaps under that family’s patronage. Her broader suggestion is that the…
As always, the Portsmouth Institute‘s annual conference was an edifying and relaxing taste of high intellectual pursuit, and one can only wish such events were more regularly available… and more broadly pursued by the general public. Rt. Rev. Dom Aidan Bellenger, the Abbot of Downside, set the scene with the opening lecture on Friday afternoon.…
This year’s Portsmouth Institute conference takes up the topic of “The Catholic Shakespeare,” and fittingly, this evening’s musical interlude features music of a Shakespearean theme. Specifically, the orchestra will be playing Sir William Walton’s Henry V Suite and Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture. The performance begins at 6:15, so you’ve still got time to…
Ed Fitzpatrick highlights the reasoning that state Representative Michael Chippendale (R, Foster) offered for voting in favor of the recently passed civil unions bill, and that reasoning seems to me to be incomplete. I’ll note, first, that I come to much the same conclusion as Chippendale, although I favor civil unions that build a slate…
The ProJo reports that that reformed education reformer Dianne Ravitch had apologized to RI Ed. Commish Deborah Gist for her actions following their recent meeting (which included a demand that Gist apologize to her). Ravitch issued the mea culpa on her blog after a visit to the Franciscan-founded Sienna College over the weekend. Apparently, the…
Nothing symbolizes the supposed arbitrariness of religion to those predisposed towards skepticism towards religious belief more than does the Catholic practice of eating fish on Fridays during the season of Lent. I’ll admit to having asked myself, especially on Good Friday, what connection there is between fish and the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. And then…
My patch column, this week, joins two topics related to education in Rhode Island: The connection is indirect, to be sure, but the controversy over an old prayer banner in Cranston High School West brings to mind the Chafee administration – and not (only) because Rhode Island’s new governor has me so worried that I…
This started out as a comment to my previous post on the topic, but it began to feel more like a post in its own right. As usual, our left-leaning readers have got me all wrong. I have absolutely no problem with any religion having an exclusive prayer posted in public schools, even with required…
