The News: October 2003 Archives

St. Maria Goretti is famous both for forgiving her attacker and for fighting against his sinful attack. And she's still on the job!

A flasher who'd harrassed girls at Philadelphia's St. Maria Goretti High School got his comeuppance yesterday: three students who'd seen his act before chased him down, and another 20 students wrestled him to the ground, holding him until police could arrive.

"I'm happy he's off the street," said Caitlin Dalin, 14, a Goretti ninth-grader. The flasher exposed himself to Dalin twice, she said. About two times too many....

Dalin said she kicked the suspect with her Eastland black school shoes.

Whom the gods would destroy, they first send on Larry King Live.

Update: A law student friend mentions:

The transcript isn't out yet, but Schiavo made an admission which seems to settle the issue in terms of Catholic bioethics, and should settle the matter in law. Even he admitted last night that there is not brain death. Until that happens, if it happens, his actions are objectively morally wrong, and there are no relevant issues in controversy.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Lawmakers sent Gov. Jeb Bush a bill Tuesday that will give him the power to order a feeding tube reinserted into a brain-damaged woman who is at the center of one of the nation's longest and most bitter right-to-die battles. From the AP.

My question is: when will this be called a "right-to-live" battle?

It's October and time for the Nobel Prizes to be awarded, including the Peace Prize. This year's winner seems to be a courageous person. Since Pope John Paul, a nominee several years running -- and the subject of speculation this time around -- was passed over again, it's also apparently time for Catholics to whine a little about the slight.

Not me, though. After all, some of the winners make it look like a prize for effort rather than achievement. Jimmy Carter's and Kim Dae Jung's efforts in Korea seem to have sputtered, and John Hume's and David Trimble's brave effort in Northern Ireland limps along inconclusively. Arafat, Peres, and Rabin got the prize in 1994, and Yasir's still calling in his bloodthirsty way for more "martyrs". Kissinger and Le Duc Tho -- well, enough of that.

A few winners have been plainly undeserving: Rigoberta Menchu appears to have won mainly by presenting a phony image that appealed to leftist sympathies.

It's hard to argue that Catholics have been particularly disfavored by the Nobel Institute: Kim's a Catholic; Bp. Belo of East Timor won in '96; I presume John Hume's a Catholic; of course there's Lech Walesa and Blessed Teresa.

Anyway, I figure the prize does more good if it goes to some relatively unknown figure whose efforts will be strengthened by it. The Pope's work for peace isn't going to change one whit. Yes, giving the Pope the prize would be instructive to the world's elites, but I'm not convinced they'd get much benefit from the lesson.

Update: David Brooks weighs in with an NYT op-ed.

The Archbishop of Birmingham has pointed out what many Catholics have thought: that the BBC has a pattern of bias and hostility toward the Catholic Church.

It shows up occasionally on the entertainment side: long before Popetown, the BBC presented insulting cartoons about Sister Wendy Beckett, even as it raked in cash from her art-appreciation shows.

But the news side matters more, and there the Archbishop runs down a laundry list of the Beeb's cheap shots and underhanded efforts.
[Thanks to Religion News Blog.]