Advent and Christmas celebrate the joy of a new life. Like an expectant mother, we wait, with bated breath, joyful anticipation and we brim over with excitement. For God is with us, He is soon to be born, Come, Come, Emmanuel! The Visitation of Mary is a joyful visit between cousins but also an encounter … Read more
About a hundred years ago, the usual jolly G.K. Chesterton can be found lamenting two things that are still a problem today: First, that as a writer, he has to write about Christmas long before Christmas in order for it to be published at Christmas. Second, the rest of the world seems to celebrate Christmas … Read more
The Oracle of Delphi foretold countless fortunes, futures, prophecies and mysteries over many centuries and is the same ancient fount of wisdom who declared Socrates to be the wisest man in the world. A great sign above the entrance to the Temple at Delphi exhorts all who enter her sacred halls to “know thyself,” for … Read more
Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat. Please put a penny in the old man’s hat. As Christmas carols draw mind and heart to the spirit of the season, the Church also calls for spiritual preparation through Advent. All are bidden with the shepherds to “go to Bethlehem and see” with minds and hearts … Read more
News of mothers selling their pre-adolescent daughters into sex slavery cannot help but raise the ire of concerned people around the world. The stories out of Svay Pak, Cambodia are heartbreaking, with a large percentage of 8-12 year olds being farmed out to “sex tourists” and young virgins being rented out for the weekend to … Read more
In a recent piece in Crisis I argued that secular and rationalizing ways of thought applied to the social environment soon bring us to inclusiveness. Giving people what they want equally, which is the goal of a liberal technocratic society, includes giving them equal social positions. Inclusiveness is thus part of the modern effort to … Read more
Among the many symptoms marking the crisis of faith and culture we are going through, here’s one that happens every year after Thanksgiving, falling like dead leaves during the days before Christmas, a feast for which there is simply no way to give adequate thanks. And that is the season of Advent, which finds itself … Read more
President Obama’s decision to close the Vatican embassy—moving the ambassador and his staff into shared office space in the building housing the U. S. Embassy to Italy—is viewed by many, including several former ambassadors to the Vatican, as yet another attempt by the Obama administration to further marginalize the influence of the Holy See. While … Read more
Crisis Magazine began in 1982 as a response to the crisis of faith in the Catholic Church and soon broadened it’s purview to include the crisis to faith in the public square. While signs of hope have been observed in recent decades thanks to the effective and inspired leadership of Blessed John Paul II and … Read more
In Aesop’s fable of the miller, his son, and the donkey, the trio are criticized by passersby as they make their way to town, first for not riding the donkey, then for making the young son walk, then for leaving the elderly father to walk, and then for overburdening the donkey. After each critique, they … Read more
Calling him one of the “most influential, courageous and profoundly good people to ever have lived,” President Obama ordered all U.S. flags lowered to half-staff in honor of Nelson Mandela, who died on Thursday, December 5. As the worldwide tributes pour in for the former leader of the African National Congress (ANC) and first black … Read more
I’ve reached the point where I cringe a little every time I hear the name “Pope Francis” at a social gathering. No hard feelings, I hope, your Holiness. I understand that you have a big world to worry about, and can’t anticipate how your words will be heard in every single corner of it. So … Read more
In their headlong rush to tear down the infrastructure of privilege and exalt equality and liberty, the French Revolutionaries ripped apart the social fabric which had developed in France over the centuries. In the wake of their orgy of destruction, intermediate social bodies were weakened or abolished, amongst which were the corporations or guilds. In … Read more
You may be called to join the Fapstronauts. They are an online community gathered at a place called NoFap around a pledge of non-fapping. What’s fapping? I had never heard of it either. Fapping is masturbation. Fapping has always been a problem for men but never more so since the explosion of pornography, and most … Read more
As an Evangelical youngster I devoured a paperback classic called Tortured for Christ. Written by a Romanian Baptist pastor, Richard Wurmbrand, it was a simple tale of being imprisoned and tortured for his Christian faith under the Communist regime. Another Christian from behind the Iron Curtain—Peter Deyneka visited our home on one of his trips … Read more
We hear a lot about inclusiveness, but the topic is never discussed analytically. The idea seems to be that it’s warm and fuzzy and what Jesus would do, so it’s obviously a good thing. The result is that our world is being remade for the sake of a goal that hasn’t been thought through. With … Read more
Everybody would be rich if nobody tried to be richer. And nobody would be poor if everybody tried to be the poorest. And everybody would be what he ought to be if everybody tried to be what he wants the other fellow to be. — Peter … Read more
Every saint of the Church personifies the holiness of Christ in a manner that responds to the needs of the age. St. Paul exhibited met the needs of the apostolic Church as it gradually left its Jewish moorings and became increasingly enmeshed in pagan society. The Church had to incorporate the nations while at the … Read more
Shall we allow sharp dealing, or not? That’s one of the questions that Cicero takes up in his wise and noble work, De officiis (On Moral Duties). One side, represented by the philosopher Antipater, holds that you are in the clear so long as you don’t actually tell a lie about what you are selling. … Read more
An old and valued friend, who retired after a half-century cheerfully and productively spent in the classroom, used to tell me that it was silly to think anyone would remember him once he was gone. “Like a stone falling into a river,” he’d say, using one of several similes to which he was drawn, “I’ll … Read more