Red Rose Writing

This is yesterday’s effort but Blogger didn’t like me then so you can have it today instead… Those of you who have read my stuff before will know I have a talent (read curse) for attracting odd people when I am standing in queues (particularly when waiting for buses). Well today I don’t have a [...]

Continue Reading Driving Lessons!

I’m rather suspicious of the idea, presented in this Catholic Exchange article, that the glory of Vatican II’s marital theology was its rescinding a contractual model in favor of a “covenantal” one — and, consequently, the advancement of the notion of “partnership” in place of a hierarchy which is clearly delineated in the passages from [...]

Continue Reading “From Contract to Covenant”: What was valid yesterday is “invalid” today?

So we got a dress-rehearsal yesterday. Pope John Paul II rushed to a hospital after suffering from the flu for several days: this on top of his being nearly 85 years old, in declining health, susceptible to freak injuries, and thus slowing physical momentum, for over 10 years now. They say he’ll come out of [...]

Continue Reading The Pope’s OK

The rest of the country will talk about some groundhog in Pennsylvania today, but serious Catholics know that the real significance of this day is its being the Feast of the Purification of the B.V.M., the theme of the 4th Joyful Mystery of the Rosary, when our Lord is presented in the Temple at the [...]

Continue Reading No King but Caesar #3: On Candlemas Day, some rancid Christmas leftovers

[After a long hiatus, another installment in one of A9C's irregular series, in which are explored the doings and sayings of those who call themselves Catholics but yet refuse to accept Christ the King's jurisdiction over the political sphere, just like that wicked mob in Pilate's courtyard that said, well, you know....] Some bishops in [...]

Continue Reading The “No King but Caesar” Files, #2

Well, after more than a month’s absence, a belated Happy New Year to you all. It hasn’t started out quite that way for me, much-explaining the time elapsed since my last post, and as most of you know, I was openly questioning whether this enterprise was even worth it anymore. Only about a dozen readers [...]

Continue Reading Job Hunting

Other bloggers talk about taking the Christmas holidays off, but since the Annals is so infrequently updated, what would be the point in that? There’s always something to say about something…. So I’m rummaging through the meager Web site of John Vennari’s Catholic Family News, to which I’ve never had a subscription.* One of the [...]

Continue Reading Pre-Christmas intercontextual reading assignment

Tom Pauken, writing in Chronicles magazine of Rockford, Ill., describes the hostility on the part of the Bush-Rove axis to real conservatives in action in Texas politics in the late 20th century — illustrative of how it is that in Washington at the top of the 21st, their act of suffocation continues, as this commentary [...]

Continue Reading More on Bush anti-conservatism: a view from Texas

I have the understanding that columnist Robert Novak is what’s called a “neo-conservative,” but his work this morning deserves much attention (and has already gotten some from Open Book, whence I found this): pointing out the White House snub of visiting Italian dignitary Rocco Buttiglione, whose nomination to serve as Justice Minister in the European [...]

Continue Reading What Bush really thinks of principled Christians

[Headline in the style of Mark Shea, who has his good points, even though he has no time for the Annals whatsoever.] I’m not sure much direct comment is necessary to a story detailing a ruling by the Washington State Supreme Court that “Parents can’t monitor kids’ phone calls”, as a result of agitation on [...]

Continue Reading Sensible child-rearing