Of Dave Ramsey, Babies, and Birth Control

“Well, it’s no trick to make a lot of money … if what you want to do is make a lot of money.” ~ Mr. Bernstein, Citizen Kane (1941) Dave Ramsey is all the rage, especially among Christians. His Financial Peace University seminars are regularly advertised at churches, and his books are bestsellers at Christian … Read more

Conservatism: Its Meaning and Prospects

Conservatism at bottom is resistance to the technocratic project, the modern attempt to turn the social world into a sort of universal machine for the maximum satisfaction of preferences. That project has been growing up for a long time. It comes out of an understanding of knowledge and the world with its roots in the … Read more

Buying Catholic Support for the Common Core

A day after the New York Times reported that a group of more than 100 Catholic scholars had asked the nation’s Catholic bishops to repudiate the Common Core guidelines, the Cardinal Newman Society reported that the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA)—a Washington, DC lobbying group for Catholic education—had accepted more than $100,000 from the Bill … Read more

Stalky and Co. by Rudyard Kipling

Kipling’s first book championing the great man “Stalky” is near the top of my list of must-read literature for adolescent men, though it is a book that I have never recommended to said young men.  The reason for my reticence finds basis in the all-too-abundant collection of “good naughties” that in the book one therein … Read more

What’s in a Name?

The Montagues and Capulets placed great store in their brand names, even to the point of stabbing one another, but the Capulet girl was a wistful voice: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet.” Move from Verona across a few centuries to the … Read more

On Pulling Punches from the Pulpit

Casting broad generalizations about the state of American Catholicism is a hazardous business.  Yet from where I sit in the pew, pulpits are experiencing the phenomena of Sherlock Holmes’ hound that doesn’t bark.  More specifically, I am getting a sinking feeling that in this age of ideological political partisanship, bishops and priests are succumbing to … Read more

The Federal Hand Behind Common Core

“Common Core is a state-led initiative.” This sentence is among the most repeated pitch lines of those selling Common Core.  It is an effective sales pitch, but is it true? The answer lies in the maze of money and regulation tying federal and state departments of education together. Let’s start with the money.  The money … Read more

Realism in an Age of Relativism

Anyone who has ever seen a painting by J. M. W. Turner knows very well how a stirring spectrum of colors, and the magnificent interplay of light and shade, was employed by that artist to imitate the heartbreaking beauty of the natural world. At times, Turner’s fascination with elaborate skyscapes earned him the rebuke of … Read more

I Met a Hero in Harvard Yard

Or I might say, “Sauron forgot about a hobbit.” There is one thing everyone ought to know about blacktop.  It cracks.  Ice then gets into the cracks and before you know it, there’s a regular furrow, and some windswept dirt, and something with stubborn roots sets up in it, like dandelions with their brave yellow … Read more

When Those We Love Die

In thinking about the destiny of those who die, the course of their final trajectory beyond the grave, it is always unwise to make predictions about the precise place awaiting them on the other side.  How can anyone, in the absence of a sudden sunburst from above, possibly know?  Unless one were fully omniscient—which is … Read more

St. Wolfgang and the Church the Devil Built

October 31 does not receive much attention as a saint’s feast day in the United States. The ostentatious festivities of Halloween are, of course, difficult to compete with—as is the Holy Day it vigils. Besides being a night of merry devilry and the eve of All Saints’ Day, October 31 commemorates the feast of one … Read more

Holiness in Photographic Negative: The Life of Blessed Junipero Serra

The 24th of November this year will afford a significant opportunity for North Americans to reflect upon their common past: the three hundredth anniversary of the birth of Bl. Junipero Serra. In commemoration of the founder of the California missions, the Huntington Library has assembled an exhibition devoted to his life and work, co-curated by … Read more

Lou Reed’s Last Sunday Morning

I don’t know if Lou Reed’s life illustrates the maxim that promiscuity is a misbegotten search for God. But his lyrics do. Reed’s lyrics were certainly promiscuous—and omnivorous—when it came to sex, as well as drugs and rock ’n’ roll. But they were also filled with spiritual seeking, which is why a Vatican official paid … Read more

Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “The Windhover”

As liturgical time draws to an end, the Catholic Church celebrates the Feast of Christ the King.  At this moment it is worth remembering one of the finest English efforts at honoring the glory, majesty, sovereignty, authority, liberality, and magnanimity of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords—“The Windhover: to Christ our Lord” by … Read more

The Blessings of Sin

When asked once about a sermon he’d just heard, the legendarily laconic Calvin Coolidge managed to summarize its theme in a single word:  “Sin.”   Pressed for details concerning the preacher’s views on the subject, President Coolidge added four more:  “He was against it.”  Where Coolidge himself stood on the matter, the record does not show.  … Read more

The Real Lessons of Prohibition

In October, 1919, a heavily “progressive” Congress passed the Volstead Act enforcing the Eighteenth Amendment, prohibiting, for almost all purposes, the production, sale, and distribution of alcoholic beverages. There are two things everybody has learned from Prohibition. First, it is wrong to try to legislate morality. Second, you cannot do it, for Prohibition failed. But … Read more

The Ivy League as a Mirror of the World: A Response to Anthony Esolen

Last week, Prof. Esolen reflected on the biases and pretentious political opportunism exhibited by many American elites—particularly those who have brought a sense of exceptional privilege and arrogance to the levers of centralized government. I heartily agree with the crux of that argument, and with the deserved criticism directed at certain renowned institutions of higher … Read more

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