We are now in what is called the “Great Fifty Days” of the Easter Season. As we know, every Sunday is really the celebration of Easter, what the Church calls the “Paschal Sacrifice,” the saving death and resurrection of Christ. During these great fifty days, we are meant to recall and be refocused on the … Read more
When Lent began, I had an inkling of what it would look like—the typical penances, spiritual reading, and whatnot to prepare for Passiontide and Easter. After all, it is a time to enter the desert with Jesus. This year, however, the desert around me transformed itself into something entirely unfamiliar. On St. Patrick’s Day, my … Read more
There is something truly rotten in the state of Shakespeare criticism. Take, for instance, All is True, a recent film produced by Sony Pictures Classics, which shows Shakespeare as a homosexual. Such nonsense has its rotting roots in pride and prejudice, both of which need to be exposed so that we can clear Shakespeare’s name … Read more
Both Aristotle and Saint Thomas Aquinas speak of the debts of gratitude we owe to others—to God, to our parents, to our city or nation—anyone from whom we receive benefits. We pay our debts by giving to each benefactor what is due to him, according to our abilities. Often, the best we can do is … Read more
Hatred comes first, and reasons follow after. In our time, from what I can see, political hatreds are the worst, because they are proof against any appeal to real things. Realities have receded, and the phantoms of imagination, of mass entertainment and its passions, rush in to take their place. Let me explain. We used … Read more
A recent study of the most popular search terms on Amazon during the Covid-19 pandemic showed that both “bread” and “flour” ranked high. “Bread” is to be expected: people look to purchase basic necessities without leaving the house. But “flour” is perhaps a little surprising. Are people searching for flour out of desperation because the … Read more
Rod Dreher lives in fear. It comes out in his life and certainly in much if not most of his writing. Just this week he was writing about (what else?) the coronavirus, commenting on his blog at The American Conservative, “This thing is going to be with us a very, very long time. It will … Read more
Each year on May 1, the Catholic faithful celebrate the feast day of Saint Joseph the Worker. This feast day, instituted by Pope Pius XII in 1955, was meant to provide downtrodden laborers with a spiritual patron, as well as an alternative to the communist labor agitation that was prevalent at the time. The Catholic … Read more
In loco parentis means “in the place of the parents.” It is an old legal concept that once had a venerable place in Western law. The doctrine of in loco parentis was invoked when people or institutions had to act in the place of parents. Schools, for example, were deemed to share in a parent’s … Read more
As American parents have learned in the last two months, it doesn’t matter what we think of home-schooling, we’re all doing it, especially for those in my home, Fairfax County, Virginia, where our nationally renowned public school system delayed and then egregiously fumbled its move to virtual classes. Thankfully, there are libraries-worth of free information … Read more
“All things have their season, and in their times all things pass under heaven.” This passage from Ecclesiastes—about there being a time to be born and a time to die, a time to cast away stones and a time to gather them together, and vanity, and dust—well, it’s pretty grim stuff if you take it … Read more
There is a great deal of division among Catholics across the globe today regarding the way in which the hierarchy have dealt with the pandemic. Some feel that by closing churches and forbidding the Sacraments to the faithful, those bishops who have done so have betrayed the flock. Others believe that they are showing prudence … Read more
We’re all hoping that life will return to “normal” in a few weeks, at least to some extent. We’re also hearing (often from the same source) that life will never be the same because of COVID-19. Obviously, we all want certain things to return to normal as soon as possible. We want to receive the … Read more
As I was walking past the many gates in the Denver International Airport, thinking of all of the festivities that would soon be taking place for my sister’s wedding, my eye was caught by one of those “Pass It On” billboards which line the walls, shining and waiting for someone to receive its motivational message. … Read more
A few years ago, in Defending Marriage: Twelve Arguments for Sanity, I wrote that the recognition of same-sex pseudogamous relations—the acceptance of a lie, that a man can in fact mate with another man, or a woman with a woman—would make it even harder than it already is for us to see that man is made for woman … Read more
Saint Paul implores us to remain “unspotted from the world.” I suppose I have my share of spots but, in order to keep from accumulating any more, I do my best to avoid the news. Even so, I cannot but notice that something is amiss. Odd staples go missing from the refrigerator for days at … Read more
Upon hearing the puerile remarks of Governor Andrew Cuomo last week, Chesterton came to mind. The lapsed Catholic governor is usually prone to inanity and offense, but this reached new heights: “We have turned the corner on the Coronavirus plague. It was not faith or prayers that did it. Only hard work and science.” To … Read more
“The Lentiest Lent we’ve ever Lented.” Those words make up my favorite meme, which gained great traction on social media during the first few months of 2020. Even those who aren’t Catholic or Christian found themselves relating to this catchy phrase, as recently, thanks to the coronavirus, we’ve all been put through some version of … Read more
Like many saints, George the dragon-slaying patron of England has murky origins, but he may go back to the Christian martyr soldier who refused to make a pagan sacrifice for the Emperor Diocletian’s bribe of wealth, and lost his head for it on April 23, 303. A millennium or so later, English Crusaders brought back … Read more
The fact that Shakespeare was a believing Catholic in very anti-Catholic times can be proven beyond any reasonable doubt. The evidence is convincing in terms of what is known about his life and from what can be seen in his plays and poems. Since this is so, it’s intriguing to consider Shakespeare’s response to the … Read more