Mark's Blog

“While in college, his Jesuit formation did not stand up to intellectual scrutiny.”  So said the introduction to my college’s new president in the Alumni magazine published several decades ago.  Intellectual rigor won out over religious expression.  Again. By the time...

Survival of the fittest is an adage that has long been planted in our psyches.  The phrase emerged as a terse summary of Charles Darwin's findings that the strongest and fittest of a species have the best chance of passing their genes on to the next generation.  The...

It is a tension that has confounded people for centuries:  ‘the world as it is’ vs. ‘the world as it should be’.   Most people make some commitment to doing something that will help bring about the world as it should be, but their commitment may falter, or may even be...

I have not been one who has subscribed to the notion of original sin, which is the legacy Christians have inherited from Adam and Eve, whom the Judeo-Christian tradition have identified as the first man and first woman.  We meet them in the Garden of Eden, which is...

The fear mongers and the anger entrepreneurs are ubiquitous. Their messages — on air, screen or in print, are intended to arouse the ego and trigger a reaction. Fill us with resentment, indignation or fear. Concepts and issues that had once invited conversation are...

There are some serious, if not dangerous, fault lines in American discourse these days.  Some have been around for decades – notably attitudes toward guns and abortion;  and we take care to avoid these issues or tread lightly around them in conversation with people...

Free speech, which most people in America recognize as a fundamental right, is undergoing endless and painful scrutiny these days.  What opinions should be allowed – or prohibited, on Facebook or Twitter?  When do stated certain political or religious convictions...

If you haven’t seen the video, you certainly have heard about the savage beating of Tyre Nichols, which led to his death,  murder charges brought against five Memphis police offers who carried out the atrocity, and their subsequent firing. Brutal, horrific, evil.  And...

In the wake of 40 mass shootings so far this January, I am struck by – and stuck on, some paradoxical statements that have echoes in different parts of the country.  The first, from Shannon Watts, who is the founder of Moms Demand Action, a gun violence prevention...