Not just a pandemic and unrest make this an unusual inauguration. So does Joe Biden.
It’s not an easy thing for the director of The Bernardin Center to acknowledge.
Cardinal Joseph Bernardin was archbishop of Chicago from 1982 until his death in 1996. In those years, Bernardin became one of the most influential religious leaders and the most effective public theologians not just in the Roman Catholic Church, but around the globe. His influence still is felt today, especially because his critics still feel the need to rebut him. When he lost his life to cancer in 1996, he shared…
It’s easy. The same way a Catholic can vote for anybody else. The way the Church tells us to vote.
2020 brings us the twelfth presidential election since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. There are eleven reasons to believe that this twelfth election will not stop abortions. Yet, still Catholic voters are told they must not vote for Joe Biden (who is Catholic) and instead must vote for Donald Trump because of abortion. This has been going on for five decades, and this approach only has poisoned our politics while corroding the unity of the church.
Can a good Catholic vote for Joe Biden?
Among Catholics, there is almost no question asked more often as we head toward Election Day. And of course, the answer is Yes! Good Catholics also can vote for Donald Trump. There is no “good Catholic” way to vote. There are good Catholic reasons for choosing how we vote, though. That’s what Catholic voters need to pay attention to.
Take just a few words from the official teaching of the Catholic Church as a place to start. St. John Paul II told us that, “Where life is involved, the service of charity…
It’s Time to Sing the Praises of Politicians and the Political Vocation
I can remember the chill that ran through me the day I saw the slogan in print for the first time. I was teaching at the University of South Carolina campus in Aiken. It was about a dozen summers ago, and I was driving along Dougherty Road. The lawn sign encouraged me to vote for a candidate in a local election, and beneath his name was the promise —
A Businessman, Not a Politician
So much of where we find ourselves today can be traced to the growing…
A Catholic Reflection on the U.S. Supreme Court’s Propositions of Religious Liberty
All of political life is sharing.
That’s not easy to appreciate today when so much of our discourse focuses on maintaining divisions and drawing lines. But the deepest meaning of politics is that it is about a sharing. Political life is about what we have no choice except to share because we dwell together. Our social nature brings us together. That circumstance makes us a community. When we think and work together about our shared life, that is politics.
How do we do this sharing with each other…
Bernie Sander’s Disappointed Supporters Would Do America a Favor If They Would Learn That Quickly
Freedom is hard.
This is not an academic point. Freedom means accepting not just that we disagree, but that others are wrong. And, it means accepting that if others are as free as we are, and they are wrong, we will not get what we want and often we will get what is bad.
Making this argument to my fellow Catholics has been my Sisyphean vocation for 30 years. Yes, I tell them, I agree that abortion is morally evil. But our nation of laws…
I want to take note of a few facts as I begin here —
Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) resigned from the House after being accused of sexual misconduct in July, 2017.
Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) and Rep. Ruben Kihuen (D-NV) both resigned from the House after being accused of sexual misconduct in December, 2017. Al Franken (D-MN) also resigned from the Senate in December, 2017, and Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-TX) announced in the same month he would not run for re-election following allegations of sexual misconduct.
Most of us are old enough to remember when South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford…
Why I Think about Retiring to My Vineyard
As CBS begins streaming Picard this month, I find a kindred soul in the old, bald hero of Maxia. I also understand the desire to retreat from institutions to which you’ve dedicated your life when they become so unrecognizable and so disappointing that the despair feels overwhelming, a life’s work feels wasted.
Thirty years ago, while Star Trek: The Next Generation exploded to syndicated success on UHF stations across America and beyond, I experienced the first stirrings of a vocation to understand our politics through the lens of Roman Catholicism and to live my Catholic faith as an academic vocation…
The U.S. Catholic Bishops Need To Do Better
One of the real pleasures of being the director of The Bernardin Center at Catholic Theological Union is found in the opportunities I have for interreligious encounters. We have a thriving program in Catholic-Muslim Studies, and our Catholic-Jewish Studies Program has existed for fifty years, growing up with Nostra Aetate’s implementation and with CTU, itself.
During our Holocaust remembrance observances here in the spring, I had an opportunity to hear a survivor speak about her experiences. She offered an ennobling account of her life, all she has seen and what she has learned about our shared humanity. …
One whistleblower changed the whole Trump era. But it could have been anyone.
The problem with a truth that everybody knows is that no one has a reason to act on it.
Like a rental car or the floor of a movie theater, no one feels responsible. It belongs to all of us, so no one does anything.
Donald Trump’s corruption has been in plain view since the day he was sworn in as president of the United States. (Actually, it has been in plain view for far longer: it’s only mattered since January 20, 2017.)
The problem with the…
Steven P. Millies
Steven P. Millies is associate professor of public theology and director of The Bernardin Center at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.
