Dawn Eden has a fascinating take on where modern youth are — and where they are headed. I recently wrote a story for OSV about the alarming “hookup culture” developing on college campuses,  and spoke with Dawn Eden about the phenomenon. That interview, in full, follows.

What’s so different about this phenomenon than the 1970s?

What’s different is that back in the 1970s young people had some idea of a normative relationship. They had some sort of model before them of a lasting marriage—usually that of their own parents, but, if not, those of their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and others close to them. So they felt that if they ‘sowed their wild oats,’ as their older generation...READ MORE

The Hoopeses bought an antenna and a converter box and so we’re finally watching the Winter Olympics. As usual, it’s not just a sports competition. It’s a microcosm of all that is best and worst about the world we live in.

1. The Moral Subtext.

Olympic Comeuppance. The moral subtext of the 2006 Winter Olympics was “pride cometh before a fall.” A special Bode Miller website and late night partying came before Bode Miller’s fall from the standings. Showboating did in Lindsey Jacobellis when she tried to be cute at the end of her race, and so wiped out, giving the gold and silver to the two people behind her.

Olympian Sportsmanship. This Olympics, Bode has redeemed himself...READ MORE

Here are some thoughts on how to approach the “gay marriage” debate from my Christianity and Mass Media class. That debate can often look like us shouting “No!” and them shouting “Yes!” The Church has a better way.

Since Sunday was Feb 14, which is not only Valentine’s Day but also the feasts of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, my class last week read Pope John Paul II’s encyclical “Apostles to the Slavs.”

The lessons in that document can help us approach the “Slavs” of our day — those strangers with strange words and strange ways — who we want to reach with the message of the Gospel.

1.Leave your comfort zone.

When our heroes, Cyril and Methodius, were told to go and...READ MORE

It is important to give things up for Lent. Some pastors rightly warn some congregations about the wrong approach to Lent. It isn’t a spiritual bodybuilding contest … you aren’t supposed to do astounding things in Lent so you can look in the mirror and flex your spiritual muscles.

But you are supposed to regain some control over your life. As St. Paul says, for some, their god is their stomach. If you’re in that boat with me, let’s cast away that idol.

The public recently learned that Pope John Paul II went to great lengths to practice mortification in order to leave him freer to love God more. That’s what you and I should do, at our own level. If there’s something in your...READ MORE

Today is President’s Day, when we celebrate George Washington (and Abraham Lincoln and, now, the rest, too, I suppose) for giving us freedom.

That means we celebrate religion in America, too, today, because Washington saw religion as absolutely necessary to freedom.

A few readers of this blog have been hotly debating homosexual marriage in the com-boxes.

They have seen for themselves how quickly freedom breaks down if religion and morality don’t support it.

Think of it this way: Who gets more freedom, a group of nuns suddenly congregating on a city block, or a group of juvenile delinquents congregating on the block? The cops will keep close tabs on the juvies: The nuns will be left...READ MORE

I found it ironic that The New York Times blew the lid off of homosexual “marriage” just when I was talking about it with my Christianity in Mass Media class.

You hadn’t heard that The New York Times utterly destroyed the homosexual marriage argument and left it in fragments on the ground? They did — while pretending they weren’t. “Many Successful Gay Marriages Share an Open Secret,” is the Jan. 29 story by Scott James.

Here’s how it begins:

“When Rio and Ray married in 2008, the Bay Area women omitted two words from their wedding vows: fidelity and monogamy.”

The story said:

“A study to be released next month is offering a rare glimpse inside gay relationships...READ MORE

In my Christianity in Mass Media class later this semester we have a session I’m calling “Christian Movies and the Menace of Mediocrity.” Nick Alexander, the Catholic weird Al, has a great new video that will NOT be part of that class session. It has everything that such projects from Catholics should have. It has quality production values. Quality sound, picture and visual ideas.  In other words, it doesn’t “create a vacuum,” as my dad used to say.

It in fact suffers from only one defect: My daughter isn’t in it! It is, by coinicidence, filmed at the parish we used to attend in New Haven, Conn., and Nick — whom I have never met and was surprised to see in film at my old parish —...READ MORE

The Church has suffered great losses in the past few years — enormous losses: Father Richard John Neuhaus, Cardinal Avery Dulles, Msgr. William Smith. Now, we’ve lost Ralph McInerny. My question—which I’m asking only, not answering, by the way — is who do we have to take their place? Or do we only have a giant void?

I asked several friends here at Benedictine College. Their responses made me realize I’m not prepared to answer the question, only to ask it.

1. Does America still have the academic capacity to produce minds of their caliber? These men are not only different in degree from smart folks, but almost different in kind. We’re talking about men who could grasp the nuances of...READ MORE