I’m currently in the midst of watching Sir Kenneth Clark’s celebrated Civilisation, first broadcast by the BBC in 1969 and subsequently by PBS. I had heard so much about it, and remember watching it as a child, and was looking forward to having a guided tour of Western Civilisation by one of its most outspoken … Read more
By the time this little piece of writing runs, this year’s mad march towards the crowning of an NCAA college basketball champion will have begun it’s climactic careen. It is likely that at one point or another over a hundred million people will tune in to watch sixty-plus teams vie for the honor of cutting … Read more
Have you ever found yourself having a hard time responding to someone in an argument and not exactly knowing what the problem is? Many times, the problem is that your opponent is making an assumption that you have not identified. And many times, it is this very assumption that is at issue. If you knew … Read more
Public School 129 in Harlem, New York, has a name straight out of the bureaucrat’s bottom drawer, and its street frontage is pretty dreary too. But inside, something beautiful and inspiring is going on. Kids who live in what can politely be called challenging neighbourhoods and who struggle with reading and basic maths are learning … Read more
“Out of Egypt I called my son.” — Hosea 11:1 In the Gospel of Matthew, the advent of the Messiah is followed by an abrupt departure. Almost immediately after the Magi visit them, the Holy Family takes off forEgyptbecause Joseph has been warned in a dream that King Herod would kill the infant Jesus. The … Read more
“Duh.” With that word, House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi gleefully delivered a fatal blow to her Republican colleagues who had launched a major political battle against the contraception mandate issued by President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services. Pelosi was referring to her Republican colleagues who held a congressional hearing earlier that day to … Read more
“This is about the government coercing religious institutions to violate their own beliefs.” So clarifies the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty in their feature ‘The Truth Should Not Be A Secret’. It aims to debunk the top myths that quickly circulated out of spin control centers from the administration and their complicit media partners. I’ve … Read more
Why, there is Echon come back again . . . my nephew, my brother, my cousin, you have finally come back to us!” Thus with the warmth typical of their people did the Huron Indians greet their beloved father, Jean de Brébeuf. In the Huron tongue Echon meant “the strong one” or “the one who … Read more
Many Crisis readers are concerned at the reports that have begun to emerge regarding Fr. Marcel Guarnizo’s denial of Communion to the alleged lesbian Barbara Johnson and the subsequent loss of his priestly faculties upon the authority of Cardinal Wuerl and communicated through a letter by Bishop Knestout, the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of … Read more
Sinful anger loses its temper, and righteous anger uses it. Our Lord as the Way uses His righteous anger against demagogues, as the Truth against hypocrites, and as the Life against the cruel. His anger is love, rescuing them from their own folly. But He never gets angry at Satan, who is beyond redemption. Christ shouts … Read more
There you will show me That which my soul desired; And there You will give at once, O You, my life! That which You gave me the other day. —John of the Cross, Spiritual Canticle Midnight. Shelly is getting herself drunk so that she can bring herself to go home with the strange man seated … Read more
Thirty-some years ago, I spent a fair amount of time on religious freedom issues: which meant, in those simpler days, trying to pry Lithuanian priests and nuns out of Perm Camp 36 and other GULAG islands. Had you told me in 1982 that one of my “clients,” the Jesuit Sigitas Tamkevicius, would be archbishop ofKaunasin … Read more
So what will it be? A grande Latte… or Western Civilization? A scone with that… or the meat of doctrine? An extra shot of espresso… or the survival of families? A Moccachino… or the Mystical Body of Christ? Today, the price is the same. Tomorrow the terms change. Tomorrow there may be silence, apart from the … Read more
When they were casting for the old western The Rifleman, one small boy was brought into the room after another, to meet the star Chuck Connors and the director. Then young Johnny Crawford came in, a little gangly in the arms and legs, with tousled hair and large brown eyes. “That’s the son of Lucas … Read more
Thirty minutes from now I will stop working on this article and, with that strange combination of eagerness and resignation that animates mothers around the globe, prepare to pick-up my children from school. Forty minutes from now, one of my children will grab their forehead, let out a low moan, and admit to forgetting their … Read more
The Attorney General of the United States has again abdicated his duties; he has notified Congress that he will not defend a duly enacted law in the courts. He did this in February of last year, too, when he stepped back from upholding the federal Defense of Marriage Act. This time, he refuses to defend … Read more
When the Obama administration made the decision not to exempt Catholic hospitals and universities from the mandate to provide insured employees with contraceptives, morning after pills, and sterilization without a co-pay, one of those consulted was Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood. Richards obviously has a special interest in having contraception covered, since dispensing contraception … Read more
Pat Robertson Says Marijuana Use Should be Legal. From the deep Crisis Magazine archive, Jeff Tucker has a few thoughts of his own on the issue. Many Catholics have developed a bad habit of mind. They believe that if they are against something, it should be against the law — or, alternatively, if they are for something, … Read more
Those of you past a certain age may remember the old Art Linkletter show “Kids Say the Darndest [sic] Things.” The one I still remember was when Linkletter asked a little boy if he looked like his daddy. “No,” replied the boy innocently, “I look like the mailman.” Well, adults say the darnedest things, too. … Read more
Editor’s note: Since so many people have responded favorably to the Civilized Reader column with requests for more information about John Senior and his educational vision, it seemed appropriate to republish this review of James Taylor’s Poetic Knowledge: The Recovery of Education by (State University of New York Press, 1998). Taylor and Kramer were both … Read more