Never in the world’s history have economic problems played such a large part in human life or had such a direct influence on human thought as at present. Economics have come to overshadow politics, to absorb into their sphere the entire social question. Even the man in the street has learnt that his personal welfare … Read more
The first step on the way to solving a problem is to understand what the problem is. Consequently, we can’t look to America’s bishops to offer solutions to our nation’s most pressing problem because most of them simply don’t get it. The biggest problem we currently face is an attempt to overthrow our country’s system … Read more
The Fourth of July weekend in Chicago had more to do with firearms than fireworks, with 49 shootings, 60 victims, and 14 fatalities. A 10-year-old girl was killed in her home by a stray bullet, shot through the head. A toddler was killed in his car seat by another stray bullet, shot through the chest. … Read more
We are living in a strange time, to be sure—a strange amalgam of the last short years of the antebellum South and Weimar Germany. If we were selling it to a studio as a film idea, we would have to say it’s the first half-hour or so of Gone with the Wind meets Cabaret. Amid … Read more
I have just read a story sent out on July 3 by CWN regarding the suspension of Rev. Theodore Rothrock from public ministry by the Diocese of Lafayette in Indiana, where he was pastor at Saint Elizabeth Seton Catholic Church in Carmel. The offense that brought about his suspension was an item he wrote in … Read more
Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) is among many largely forgotten Renaissance artists. While Michelangelo, Leonardo, Donatello, and Raphael are household names (if mostly thanks to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Botticelli remains largely forgotten, his works bombarded quickly snapped teenage selfies by largely oblivious teenagers visiting Florence’s Uffizi Gallery. Nonetheless, Botticelli’s paintings are among the most exquisite … Read more
Washington, Missouri, until a few weeks ago, was blessedly free from the progressive currents electrifying the cities of the coasts and the upper Midwest. An eavesdropping visitor would have found Democrats sitting cheek to jowl with Republicans, talking in mild midwestern tones—as though civility mattered more than “conviction.” If someone had proposed tearing down a … Read more
Karens are everywhere, notes a June 30 article in the Washington Post, and they are the most addictive thing to watch in America’s disastrous summer of 2020. For the uninitiated, a “Karen” is a pejorative term for a white woman who is “perceived to be entitled or demanding beyond the scope of what is considered … Read more
The story of the American founding usually begins in the East. In that account, we speak of the War of Independence, the establishment of the American republic, and prominent founding fathers like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. However, there is an older story involving other founding fathers which took place in the West. Nearly 80 years … Read more
The American city is built on efficiency. Roads weave and connect, and gas stations populate major street corners. Fast food restaurant chains pepper the highways so that drivers can eat as soon as they are hungry. Mountains are leveled and rivers are redirected so that the greatest number can fit in the smallest area. Buildings … Read more
Navigating the current political waters can seem not only difficult but pointless. In our times, leadership has failed in almost every sector of society: families are broken, schools are in need of desperate aid, governors and senators vow false promises they know they will not keep, and mob rule appears to be replacing the ethical … Read more
Considering a title for this essay, I rather facetiously suggested to my friend, Father Edward Tomlinson, who assisted me with many of the facts for the piece, that I should call it either “Newman’s bums” or “Sacred bottoms.” Father Tomlinson, a priest of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, as am I, is the … Read more
Before nine o’clock on July 6, 1535, the Lord Chancellor of England was conducted to Tower Hill, London, where he lost his head for the crime of keeping his head. As Joseph Addison said, “He did not look upon the severing of his head from his body as a circumstance that ought to produce any … Read more
People who read Dante for the first time may well be surprised that of the two great ways to embrace what is evil—as opposed to loving what is good but in an evil way—the poet says that fraud is worse than violence. This is because violence suppresses or negates what separates man from the beasts, … Read more
Pope Francis has condemned racism, and what Catholic could possibly disagree? Responding to the killing of George Floyd, the Holy Father said: “My friends, we cannot tolerate or turn a blind eye to racism and exclusion in any form and yet claim to defend the sacredness of every human life.” I have to think he … Read more
Give me Attila the Hun over our present-day homegrown barbarians. There was something honest about the old-fashioned barbarians. Whether they were the Huns or the Vikings, or the Vandals or the Visigoths, there was something honest about them. They made no bones about it: they were going to sweep down, burn your village, rape your … Read more
Some mock America’s statue-smashers as ignoramuses who do not know what they are doing or why. But there are very good reasons why we see monuments cast down all over the West, including the United States. Let’s not wave this off as mindless stupidity. The radical rule is that the more you destroy, the more … Read more
Across the developed world, ignorant mobs and anarchists are tearing down statues of saints, defacing church monuments, and setting the churches on fire. Not to mention that in the developing world many Christians continue to suffer martyrdom by the thousands at the hands of secular and religious extremists. This has caused many people to finally … Read more
In the Byzantine Divine Liturgy, there is a petition for “a good defense before the awesome judgment seat of God.” I often find that abortion flashes through my mind at that prayer. Given the outrageous atrocity that abortion is in the free world, the free people should expect to answer for it when the Judge … Read more
In order for women to embrace our proper role in sanctifying the priesthood, we must be willing to abandon the adversarial position we often place ourselves in with men. Great damage has been done in the dynamic between men and women, thanks to radical forms of feminism that seek to pit men and women against … Read more