Pope Benedict

Times and climate changed with Pope’s visit

Sheila Liaugminas | 22 August 2011

This World Youth Day seemed different.

News media skip World Youth Day

Sheila Liaugminas | 20 August 2011

And thus, one of the biggest stories on the planet right now. Certainly, the most positive and hopeful one at the moment.

Media’s role in world peace

Sheila Liaugminas | 29 May 2011

This is interesting. It’s not that a pope encouraging the communications media to be responsible is exactly headline news….

Vatican’s role in space mission

Sheila Liaugminas | 23 May 2011

I have been an avid follower of the NASA program and followed its missions since childhood. So I found this last one particularly poignant.

Pope and change

Sheila Liaugminas | 09 November 2010

Benedict always has an incisive but gentle message for any country he visits, any culture he addresses. Which he really intends for larger society as a whole….

New York Times, unhinged

Sheila Liaugminas | 03 July 2010

Saturday Night Live used to feature a skit in which comedian Jon Lovitz played “The Pathological Liar” who enjoyed weaving fantastical tales which he enjoyed delivering as truth. That comes to mind, thinking through the audacity of the latest New York Times’ wildly spun tales about the pope. Only this is no joke…

‘Be preapred to make a defense’

Sheila Liaugminas | 08 June 2010

The recent Time magazine cover story on Pope Benedict, sniping and unprofessional and at times juvenile, is getting the attention it sought. And some that maybe it didn’t…

Time for some news

Sheila Liaugminas | 29 May 2010

It is not news that Time magazine has suffered the same cutbacks over recent years as other major media and consequently redirected their editorial energies to whatever sells in a pop culture seeking constant entertainment. It’s no surprise that translates to pop psychology and pop theology and liberal politics. But this is interesting…..

Where the ‘oughts’ come from

Sheila Liaugminas | 29 April 2010

Activists have been trying to drive religiously informed voices out of public debate for a very long time, with some success. But what’s their basis for arguing what we ought to do?

What a shipwreck can do

Sheila Liaugminas | 19 April 2010

Pope Benedict has been in Malta over the weekend, and gave his usual compelling addresses at the events scheduled there. But it’s interesting to note what he said in brief remarks to journalists traveling with him. He focused on the role St. Paul played in bringing Christianity to Malta, and emphasized the shipwreck that brought him there.

Call it scandalous

Sheila Liaugminas | 02 April 2010

It would re-set the roiling controversy surrounding the Church considerably if those who have been attacking its handling of the abuse crisis would admit they have strong anti-Church sentiments to begin with, and then get on with a passionate debate about it all.

Religious restrictions in the name of freedom?

Sheila Liaugminas | 11 February 2010

This happened during the Enlightenment. Nations and states and societies with short memories, or the gullibility to succumb to revisionist history, are letting it happen again. Even where people are not losing their faith, they’re losing their rights to freely express their religiously informed voices.