Ken Benfield, 'The Pursuit of Happiness': How Do Communities Make Us Happy?

Smart Growth
Smart Growth America

Word on Fire: Culture: Charles Taylor & the Secular Age

Vatican announces winners of "Ratzinger Prize in Theology"

Zenit: Winners of Ratzinger Prize Announced

Stray thoughts

There is a piece still in the works...

An evolutionist holds the assumption that because of DNA, there are a host of "forms" available to a particular organism. But has this been shown to be the case for any one organism/species? What if development is not due DNA alone, but also to epigenetic factors (and processes)? If matter is proportionate to form, then how can the matter that is proper to one form1 (or one set of forms1) be transformed to the matter proper for a different form1 (or different set of forms2) by changes in the DNA alone? One would have to show that the DNA is a cause for those epigenetic factors as well, rather than being one tool among many...

Form1 - substantial form (At the moment I think organization, a la Goodwin, is inadequate, as substantial form encompasses organization but more than that.)
Form2 - the structure(s) of the organism, which constitute its appearance

Living Tradition 148: The Second Vatican Council: A Needed Interpretation by John F. McCarthy

Paul VI, Credo of the People of God

Thomistica.net: Gratian on the Web

Kathryn Jean Lopez interviews Robert P. George: Sex and the Empire State
Losing marriage to sexual liberalism.

The Pursuit of Happiness: Can We Have an Economy of Well-Being? by Carol Graham

Eudaimonia would be the answer but we already have disputes about what constitutes the good life and the its relation to the moral law...

Sandro Magister, Bologna Speaks: Tradition Is Also Made of "Ruptures"

David Boyle, Land tax vs. land redistribution

The Stewardship Economy by Julian Pratt

VoxDay: Eco on Hawking

OpStJoseph: The Spirituality of Blessed John Henry Newman (Part I)


Part 2:


Oratorian? How did it diverge from that of St. Philip Neri?

Blessed are the Peacemakers
by Peter Kwasniewski

James Chastek, Notions of the Soul

The first real account we get of what the soul is – which is still firmly materialistic – is that the soul is some arrangement of parts which, of themselves, are not living. The Greeks called this the theory that the soul was a harmony, and it is still the simplest theory of the soul (though we would probably dump “harmony” in favor of something more scienecy- sounding). The theory is continually abandoned for various reasons, the simplest being that arrangement is a feature of position or place, but if all one does is change the position or place of something, it doesn’t cease to be what it is. If all there was to being alive was arrangement, then death wouldn’t change what a thing was – which would mean that a cow doesn’t cease to be a cow when it dies.

How does "arrangement" differ from the contemporary concept of "organization"?

Two critical reviews of Jesus of Nazareth

CRC
Robert Sungenis

Honor Harger: A history of the universe in sound


Related:

radioqualia

Pertinacious Papist: The Political Problem of Religious Pluralism. PP republishes a review, originally published in Latin Mass Magazine, by Christopher Oleson of Thaddeus Kozinski's The Political Problem of Religious Pluralism. (archive for the review)

Related:
A review at NDPR

Byzantine, Texas: A favorite Orientale Lumen Conference podcast - Sr. Dr. Vassa Larin.

Zenit: That I May See You
A Look at Benedict XVI's Catecheses on Christian Prayer
By Kevin M. Clarke