Posts Tagged ‘Pope John Paul II’
May 13th, 5PM
Two men with the potential to change the world were shot and died in 1968.
Two men with the potential to change the world were shot and lived in 1981.
Why did events go so differently in 1981?
Read MoreDes Moines Register publishes Quiner!
[This piece appeared in the Des Moines Register this morning.] THE DAY THE POPE CAME TO IOWA By Tom Quiner “Look at all those people down there!” said Pope John II from his helicopter. He saw long, winding rows of people in the fields at Living History Farms below. “They must be standing in line for…
Read MoreThe dysfunctional family that is the Catholic Church
The Catholic Church is a big, messy family.
I’m blogging live at the Christ Our Life Catholic Conference at Wells Fargo Arena. The arena is packed with the Catholic faithful from around the Midwest. I’m guessing there are about 7500 Catholics in attendance…
Read MoreIraq post-mortem
We should not have gone to war in Iraq on March 18, 2003.
Knowing what we know today, few Americans would disagree with that statement.
The Congress at the time disagreed. In bi-partisan votes, both the House and Senate supported the resolution put before them to go to war.
At the time, honorable people did disagree, such as Pope John Paul II:
The strange case of The Lady of Fatima
Who was this woman? She was “brighter than the sun, shedding rays of light clearer and stronger than a crystal ball filled with the most sparkling water and pierced by the burning rays of the sun.”
Read MoreAmerica's issues are cultural, not economic
“A Christian who hopes to follow the teachings of Jesus needs to reckon with a singular fact about American poverty: Its deepest and most debilitating deficits are moral, not financial; the most serious deprivations are cultural, not economic. Many people living at the bottom of American society have cell phones, flat-screen TVs, and some of the other goodies of consumer culture. But their lives are a mess.”
Read MoreWhat is the engine of history?
Some Republican leaders are urging their party to focus on economic issues and de-emphasize cultural issues. They believe that it is economics and politics that drive history. They are wrong.
Read MoreThe summer of hope
It began on June 2nd, 34 years ago today. The year was 1979 when the Alitalia jetliner set down in a land that time forgot for 123 years of its thousand year history. A Man in White with kind eyes stepped onto the tarmac. He knelt and kissed the earth. What was he thinking?
Read MoreThe “genius of women”
Women have shaped the world every bit as much as men, perhaps more, but in different ways. I think where the feminist movement in this country got off tracks is viewing men and women as adversarial rather than complementary.
Read MoreMay 13th, 5PM
I juxtapose the events of 1917, 1968, and 1981 as one of life’s many mysteries.
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