I try to imagine – fifty-eight years after the event – the impact on the Vietnamese, whether armed Viet Cong in jungle trenches or villagers cowering under a hail of ammo – of massed, youthful choruses, halfway across the planet, … Read More
I began writing this post near the end of February 2022, on tenterhooks along with much of the world about the likelihood of a war being unleashed by Russian military forces on the sovereign territory of Ukraine. As I post … Read More
A recap: Scene in a cafe. I am waiting for the barista to make my daily flat white when her friend arrives to say “hi.” Barista and I have been chatting about Mary Magdalene and “fake news.” Barista to friend: … Read More
WHO FRAMED MARY MAGDALENE? Twenty-one years ago, even without the question mark, a former editor of U.S. Catholic (vol 65 #4), Heidi Schlumpf, put it bluntly. Mary Magdalene has been framed. That’s quite a charge, given the ubiquity and … Read More
“One day Constantinople will be conquered,” wrote the Prophet Muhammad. “How beautiful its conqueror and how beautiful that conqueror’s soldier.” Moustafa the night clerk, in an aureole of black curls, had bent his head over a medical textbook under a … Read More
Kassia A comely woman’s face, her eyebrows arched and eyes heavy-lidded and red mouth succulent, glances sideways from within a mosaic fragment on the cover of the CD. The disc is titled “Kassia”, and records Byzantine hymns from “the first … Read More
Paul had his work cut out for him in Corinth – his Letters to the Corinthians follow Galatians chronologically – a community whose members French writer Emmanuel Carrère characterizes as a bunch unruly or at least overly enthusiastic about the … Read More
Since my last post, My Man Paul: Part One, I’ve gone on reading, and have added to my Pauline Studies bibliography a couple of websites (beliefnet.com and cbmw.org) and three books.. In 2012 the (wonderfully-named) Pheme Perkins wrote commentary on … Read More
I was a flaming young feminist and I hated St. Paul. I had never read him but no matter: the sisterhood excoriated him and his ilk – men of the Church who, from its beginnings, loathed women – and that … Read More
I do not remember a time when I could not read the letters. My (younger) sister has a memory of the two of us, on either side of our mother on the couch, the children’s Reader “Marusia” (Маруся) on her … Read More