Blog - Page 187 of 318 - John H Armstrong

Dr. Miguel Diaz: The Presidential Nuncio to the Vatican

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:12-05:00July 6th, 2009|Categories: Roman Catholicism|

Miguel Diaz was named as President Obama’s appointment to serve as papal nuncio a few days ago. Both friends and critics have spoken widely about Diaz but few seem to understand who he really is. His story provides a glimpse inside the debate over abortion in the Catholic Church and the wider culture.

Diaz is a 45-year-old professor at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. (I have been on the campus of St. John’s. It is a Benedictine university with a beautiful campus!) Diaz brings some interesting credentials to this new appointment. He is fluent in Italian, French, Spanish and English and has a doctorate in theology from Notre Dame. His academic work was on the Trinity and immigration and the Hispanic experience. He is a board member of the Catholic Theological Society of America, former president of the Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States and is a member of the Karl Rahner Society. For […]

Do The Thing You Are Afraid to Do

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:12-05:00July 5th, 2009|Categories: Personal|

Fear is a powerful emotion. There is good fear and bad fear. Good fear will keep you from doing things that are foolish and dangerous. It will also keep you in a place where you rightly fear God, which is the beginning (or foundation) of true and lasting wisdom. Job was said to be a righteous man, thus he was a person who "feared God and shunned evil" (Job 1:8). The writer of Proverbs says that a noble wife is one who "fears the Lord" (Proverbs 31:30b).

But the wrong kind of fear can cripple you and keep you from God and your duty. The beloved apostle wrote: "God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment; In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love" […]

The American Way of Life?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:12-05:00July 4th, 2009|Categories: America and Americanism|

The oft-used phrase "The American way of life" or "the American Way" is often heard in the oratory associated with July 4th in the United States. The term has its origins, interestingly enough, in the free enterprise system. It was used by Alf Landon in his 1936 campaign against Franklin D. Roosevelt. He had a slogan that was "Save the American Way of Life." This was aimed at FDR's radical new measures advanced in the New Deal. At the Chicago Tribune telephone operators answered the phone by saying: "Only ___ more days to Save the American Way of Life."

An American diplomat named Eric Johnson, who was also a film studio executive, said this phrase was a euphemism and that the word used should really be capitalism (1958). Richard Nixon, who was not a strong political conservative, used the ideas and words in a different way. Perhaps the most interesting development came in the 1980s when the television producer Norman Lear used the […]

Mistakes Are the Portal of Discovery

By John Armstrong|2009-07-03T05:00:00-05:00July 3rd, 2009|Categories: Personal|

I have made so many mistakes that I stopped counting. To count them only leads to depression, not to the type of repentance that produces real joy. Mistakes can be faced honestly and become our friends, at least in a one way. We learn from our mistakes or we will repeat them. Sometimes we keep making the same mistakes again and again, which creates a deformed, or poorly developed, character. If we overcome our mistakes, by the grace of God, we become more and more like Christ our Lord. Our mistakes can become the portal of true discovery. We can gain true "self knowledge" through the knowledge of God and by the discovery of our mistakes. Learn to enter into the depths of spiritual joy through the portals of your mistakes. You will be much stronger and healthier if you do.

Oprah and Crazy Talk

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:12-05:00July 2nd, 2009|Categories: Culture|

Weston Kosova and Pat Wingert believe television celebrity Oprah Winfrey possesses a “lifelong quest for love, meaning and fulfillment [that] plays [itself] out on her stage each day. In an age of information overload, she offers herself as a guide through the confusion” (“Crazy Talk: Oprah, Wacky Cures and You,” in Newsweek, June 8, 2009). I can’t think of a better description of the star appeal of Oprah Winfrey than that—she is a guide to millions of viewers who see her as a normal person, just like them in some ways. She struggles with gaining and losing weight, with aging and health, beauty and friendship, and most of all, with the deepest moral and spiritual questions being asked in our culture. She speaks to people who feel that no one else speaks to them so plainly and humanely. In a previous post I praised this very quality in Oprah.

But the problem, say Kosova and Wingert, is that Oprah not […]

The President Finds a Church Home

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:12-05:00July 1st, 2009|Categories: Politics|

One of the criticisms some Christians have leveled against President Obama is that he has been without a church home for more than nine months. After the fiasco at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, and Jeremiah Wright's very public rants about race, the Obama family has been without a settled place of worship and a spiritual home all year. President Obama promised that he would choose a new church after he became president. When this process took more than five months some used this delay to criticize Obama as disingenuous and lacking in any serious spiritual commitment to his Christian faith. I found this attack unfair and said so to some.

Now we know his choice, according to Amy Sullivan of Time, and we even know how he made it. On Monday Obama announced to White House aides, in what was described as an unexpected move by the writer who broke the story, that he would not have a church […]

Alternative Medicine: Real Benefits and Real Problems, Part Two

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:12-05:00June 30th, 2009|Categories: Science|

When the various attacks upon alternative medicine are considered it should be pointed out that mainstream physicians are not trained in alternative medicine. The exception, and these are growing by leaps and bounds, is that regular physicians are increasingly embracing alternative medicine as they learn the benefits it offers to patients. But they come to this view in a way that is outside their actual medical school training. This is, of course, less true for those who were trained outside the United States or in a less mainstream practice of the healing arts, like osteopathy. If you are a fair-minded reporter, and you want good information about anesthesia, who should you ask? Obviously, you would seek information from an anesthesiologist. If you want information about the benefits and problems of alternative medicine then it seems only fair that you would interview physicians who have developed an appreciation of alternative medicine by actually studying it and using it with their patients.

Another problem […]

Alternative Medicine: Real Benefits and Real Problems

By John Armstrong|2009-06-29T05:00:00-05:00June 29th, 2009|Categories: Science|

In a recent two-part post on this site (June 18 and 19) I wrote about the new physics and the new medicine. I am very aware that this conversation has some strange extremes to be found at both ends of the spectrum. The mere mention of “new” medicine makes some people react with intense passion, pro and con. I am not on the extremes of this debate thus I want to explain how I have come to appreciate alternative medicine without buying into the “hype” that so often surrounds this subject.

One of the first questions people ask when this subject comes up is very basic: “Why are so many competent and good physicians so negative about complimentary, or alternative, medicine?” If this is really beneficial why are so many opposed to it?

If my non-scientific sense of things is accurate the mainstream media presents a lot of negative information about the flaws of alternative medicine and the […]

Success Is Never Final

By John Armstrong|2009-06-28T05:00:00-05:00June 28th, 2009|Categories: Personal|

We are often too focused upon our success and not enough upon our failures. We can major, as I said previously, on our fear of failure and never try to do what we should do. We can deny our mistakes and live fruitless and self-centered lives. But we must realize that success is never final. Even when we have enjoyed our greatest success there is the opportunity to fall and fail again. This should drive us to Christ alone. Only there will we find any hope of lasting success.

Michael Barone Analyses the President

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:12-05:00June 27th, 2009|Categories: Politics|

Michael Barone is one of my top five favorite writers on politics and American culture. He is sensibly conservative without being on the fringe. He is willing to see the good in those he disagrees with but he doesn't throw out his mind in the process. This is what made his recent article "Dodge Facts, Skip Details, Govern Chicago Style" so engaging. I urge you to read it.

Michael Barone makes three telling criticisms of President Obama. In the process he significantly corrects my expression of good will about the president's approach to international tensions that I posted late last week. He refers to the president's policy toward Iran as "propitiating" our avowed enemies. I like that term better than some of the other criticisms I have read. I also think that after my piece appeared a great deal of new information suggests that Obama's "coolness" is potentially miscalculated. Barone writes that the president's "friendly words" are based on an […]