Why does it seem that orderly, prosperous, and well-run societies are usually less religious, but the less religious a society becomes the more disorderly it gets? The situation is complex, it’s hard to do comparisons, and polling results are subject to a great deal of interpretation, but general trends seem clear. Northern and Western European … Read more
RACHEL LU: When Adults Encourage Self-Destructive Behavior in the Young Sex has consequences. I realize that admitting this probably marks me as some sort of misogynist, but somehow I can’t help myself. For one thing, I have it on good authority that even in 2013, sex still has something to do with babies. Even before … Read more
Today’s pagan temples and chapels—capitalistic institutions bent on money making no matter what—have appropriated Catholic styles, symbols, art, liturgy, and rubrics just as Catholics have lost confidence in them. They are winning and we are not. It’s time for Catholicism to become newly aware of the richest of our own symbols lest we lose out … Read more
Not all religious people are conservatives; and not all conservatives are religious people. Christianity prescribes no especial form of politics. There have been famous radicals who were devout Christians—though most radicals have been nothing of the sort. All the same, there could be no conservatism without a religious foundation, and it is conservative people, by … Read more
“How beautiful […] are the feet of him who brings the gospel.” Isaiah 52:7 Isaiah’s prophecy about the Messianic age clearly echoed in the heart of the woman who anoints Christ’s feet early in his ministry. As the scene unfolds, the evangelist Luke describes her as a “sinner” and “woman of the city” (Lk 7:37). … Read more
Not long after I published my recent column about Robert McCarty and the National Federation of Catholic Youth Ministries (NFCYM), I started receiving emails from concerned and in some cases very well informed parents. One of the emails included screen shots from Facebook postings of one of McCarty’s senior employees. On Facebook this fellow celebrates … Read more
Emotional abuse can be as bad as physical abuse. Any young person who’s heard the words, “I wish you were never born,” understands that adults can inflict tremendous damage on their dependents without leaving the slightest bruise. One of the worst parts of abuse is society’s refusal to see the injustice. Emotional abuse is particularly … Read more
We the People of the United States of America, to relieve ourselves of the burdens of virtue and the nuisance of self-government, and to secure the blessings that flow from the collective and the isolated individual, do establish this Constitution. There shall be a Supreme Court of the United States, composed of nine lawyers. All … Read more
At the close of the Second Vatican Council, Paul VI noted that the Council had displayed an unparalleled desire “to know, to draw near to, to understand, to penetrate, serve and evangelize the society in which she lives.” That desire reflected a constant goal of the Church, to make her message effective by bringing it to men … Read more
Shelves overflow with Harry Potter, the Twilight series, The Hunger Games. Repugnant youths pass for heroes; the more bull-headed, the better. Parents? Pooh. The modern hero is flirting with pusillanimity should he consult with the pater. That is, if father even graces the story. Both mothers and fathers have felt the literary snub; yet fathers … Read more
The Catholic philosopher Josef Pieper wrote a short book called Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power and in it he examines the misuse of language and the corruption of the word for the purpose of manipulation and personal gain. He focuses on “Plato’s lifelong battle with the sophists, those highly paid and popularly applauded experts … Read more
Absence often manifests the importance of presence. I think of my one year old son Raphael. When my wife is not at home, he looks at me and utters a plaintive interrogative, “Mama?” “Mama will be home soon,” I respond, hoping the tone and feeling behind my words will convey a comfort their meaning cannot. … Read more
Ireland is currently the victim of an astounding deceit, the Orwellian “Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill.” It passed the Irish lower house or Dáil Éireann, and now goes on to their senate, which lacks the power to reject the measure, and on for signature from the, largely honorific, president who is in any case … Read more
In today’s “liberal” culture, as religious observance declines, the moral tide goes out, seemingly beyond the drop off. The Supreme Court decision of June 26 concerning DOMA is the most recent in an effort to “liberalize” traditionally held moral norms that owe their original establishment to the faith convictions of a once (and mostly) Christian … Read more
Of all God’s creatures, those most amiable must include koalas, pandas, dolphins and penguins, only the last two of which are aquatic. If one goes with most evolutionists, penguins used to fly and flying would have made it easier to escape their chief enemy the leopard seal, but their ability to swim made flying too … Read more
I am wondering if a little noticed—certainly little commented upon—event, which took place Friday, July 5, in the gardens of Vatican City, establishes a connection between two apparently quite different subjects about which I have written recently: the first is the frequency with which Pope Francis refers to the devil; the second is the question of what … Read more
The familiar modern image of the medieval knight—a creation of the Victorian romantic imagination, frequently appropriated by Hollywood—can be considered to be, at best, a distant and distorted shadow of its medieval literary ancestor, the knight of the chanson de geste. Knightly virtue, in the modern period, is believed to have consisted in raw physical … Read more
A couple of months back, I received a phone call from one of my sisters, reminding me of a wedding reception that she and everyone else in the family would be flying down to Florida to attend. A nephew had just gotten married in New York, and everyone was eager to celebrate the union. Was … Read more
“This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.” These lines from T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” are often quoted, but seldom taken to heart. Even those of us who consider ourselves students of Eliot’s work on civilizational decline tend to overdramatize what is really a quite tawdry cultural age. … Read more
It was the summer of 1947. The Second World War was still a painful recent memory, and much of Europe was still a bombed-out shambles. The Korean War was still three years in the future, and the Second Vatican Council wouldn’t convene its opening sessions for another fifteen years. During this summer, a fifty year-old … Read more