Even the Devils Believe

Today I’ve used some very harsh words in comments to this post about the HPV vaccine. For those who don’t know, HPV is a virus that lies at the root of nearly all cervical cancers. Cervical cancer is far more often fatal than breast cancer and can be more difficult to diagnose in [...]

I wanted to mention a couple of things relating to wine — one a little off-topic, one more on-topic.
First, concerning wine to drink at dinner — I am not much of a connoisseur, but I do like drinking good wine. We only buy a bottle once in a blue moon, because not knowing much [...]

Just a few links today — there are a lot of interesting things happening in the blogosphere this week.
First, Sister Mary Sue links to a great SF Chronicle article about a lifelong atheist who converted to Christianity. Her answers to the interviewer’s questions are extremely wise — I particularly liked her [...]

In the midst of this whole media frenzy over Anna Nicole Smith’s death, and now Britney Spears’ trip to rehab, I’ve been thinking about one of my major concerns with the 24-hour news and talk culture that has grown up in the wake of CNN’s appearance on the cable scene. The blogs feed this [...]

Sister Mary Sue has a wonderful way of putting things, and she has a great post on Lent today that you should check out:
Now, I’m all for a season of penitence. I’m rather grateful for God’s grace and forgiveness, without which I have no idea where I’d be right now (but I ’spect I’d be [...]

As I mentioned last month, I finally broke down and subscribed to First Things. The slant is somewhat conservative and Roman, but overall it’s interesting, fairly ecumenical, and pretty broadly Catholic. Better than most of the liberal offerings, sadly.
Anyhow, I got my first issue a few days ago, along with my gift for subscribing, [...]

Isaiah 57:21–58:12a [Missale Ambrosianum]
2 Corinthians 6:1–10
Matthew 4:1–11
The story in the Gospel reading for Sunday is so familiar that it’s easy to just pass right over it — Jesus gets tempted, he wins and Satan loses, wonder what’s for lunch? We’re apt to glide over the deep parallels between Jesus’ testing and the testing of [...]

It’s been interesting to observe the debate between Fr Edward T Oakes, SJ, and Alyssa Lyra Pitstick about Holy Saturday in the pages of First Things for the past three months. In a nutshell, they have been talking about whether Hans Urs von Balthasar’s understanding of Christ’s descent to the dead puts him outside [...]

In one of the most disingenuous statements I’ve ever seen from a denominational official (and really, that’s setting the bar pretty high), Katharine Jefferts Schori tries to characterize the anti-LGBT rules the Episcopal Church is almost certainly going to railroad through in the next few months as “temporary fasting” for the whole church:
Justice, (steadfast) love, [...]

+Tim posted that during Lent he is going to post reflections on the Gospel from the traditional lectionary. I’d been thinking about doing some lectionary blogging myself, as there are a lot of resources for the RCL online but fewer for the traditional (pre-Vatican II) lectionary. (But among those few resources, Lectionary Central should [...]