Scholars and pundits for generations have been making comparisons between the United States and the late Roman Empire. Such analogies date back to America’s Founding Fathers, notes Andrew Sullivan in a recent piece for New York Magazine. These men were deeply conscious of the decline of the Roman Republic, brought on by bitter and bloody … Read more
Does the Vatican have a General Directorate for Personnel? This is, perhaps, the most boring question ever posed by a writer in Crisis Magazine. And yet, as we fumble for an answer, we also come a little closer to understanding one of the most confounding papacies in 2,000 years of Christian history. Last Friday, the … Read more
The Last Supper, for Christians, is deeply significant. It is the moment when Christ instituted the Eucharist. “And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke it; and he gave to the disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body’ ” (Matthew 26:26-28). According to St. Thomas Aquinas, it was during … Read more
Super Tuesday has come and gone, effectively narrowing the Democratic Party’s presidential race for these United States down to two: septuagenarians Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, both of whom are older than their Republican opponent by a mere four or five years. We have come a long way from the days when Ronald Reagan ran … Read more
I have in my study a silver vase holding four peacock plumes and several parrot feathers. The plumes were dropped decades ago by avian residents of Andalusia, a dairy farm near Milledgeville, Georgia. The feathers come from my own Patagonian conures. The farm was once the property of Regina O’Connor and her daughter, Flannery. Both … Read more
A recent survey commissioned by EWTN News shed light on political fragmentation among American Catholics. Reading through the poll prompts the question of whether a unified Catholic politics is possible. Declan Leary recently lamented in these pages that American Catholics apparently “have no interest strong enough to transcend party bonds and operate politically as Catholics,” and … Read more
Very early in this Lent of 2020, we celebrate a votive Mass, which invites us to take our place at the foot of the Cross with the Mother of Sorrows. Popular piety has identified seven “dolors” of the Blessed Virgin: the prophecy of Simeon; the flight into Egypt; the loss of the Boy Jesus; the … Read more
Suppose the Muslim world were to lose faith in Islam. Suppose that Muslims ignored the Koran, stopped going to mosque and dismissed Muhammad as a blood thirsty warlord and slave trader. How would the Catholic Church respond? Would Church leaders greet the news enthusiastically, and declare their solidarity with the newly emancipated Iranians, Saudis, and … Read more
Recently, my wife explained to a friend that having a newborn child was like having a dog—only except ten times more difficult. Her explanation made me think. Dog parks, pet-friendly cafes, and “dog moms” abound. When we lived in Nashville, it seemed like there were more pet services than day cares. It’s almost as if … Read more
You may have caught wind of the latest attempt by Elon Musk to improve upon our human lot, this time by wiring our brains into computers through implanted chips connected to ultrathin threads lacing our brain (hence, the name “neuralace”). If you can’t decipher his white paper, then catch his popular presentation on YouTube. The … Read more
“Dialogue is our method… The path ahead, then, is dialogue among yourselves, dialogue in your presbyterates, dialogue with lay persons, dialogue with families, dialogue with society. I cannot ever tire of encouraging you to dialogue fearlessly.” —Pope Francis, Address to the U.S. Bishops, September 23, 2015 In the halls of Catholic chanceries around the world, … Read more
According to a report released by L’Arche International, Jean Vanier, the Catholic Canadian founder of a network of communities for intellectually disabled individuals, sexually abused at least six women. This news comes as both a disappointment and a shock to all those who regarded Vanier as a man of exemplary virtue. “I was horrified,” writes … Read more
February 10th marked the 60th anniversary of the death of Blessed Croatian Archbishop Aloysius (Alojzije) Stepinac (1898-1960). If Stepinac could be described in one sentence, it might sound like this: Stepinac was a man whose actions were opposed to the destructive tendencies of both fascist and communist regimes and whose heart was burned by his … Read more
When the late William F. Buckley set out to find a religion editor for National Review, he was careful to choose a Protestant. Though a Catholic himself, Buckley feared that his magazine—by then, already the flaghship of American conservatism—was becoming “too Catholic.” Eventually, he settled on a bombastic Lutheran minister named Richard John Neuhaus. Alas … Read more
On January 27, 2020, the United States Supreme Court voted to grant the Trump administration the ability to limit benefits to immigrants to the United States. The nation’s highest court granted the current presidential administration the ability to select those immigrants who would be able to “pay their own way” into the United States and … Read more
On Ash Wednesday, the White House released a statement from President Trump. “For Catholics and many other Christians,” it reads, “Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Lenten season that concludes with the joyful celebration of Easter Sunday. Today, millions of Christians will be marked on their foreheads with the sign of the cross. The … Read more
In an age in which the natural environment is not geography, flora, and fauna but human vulgarity in its limitless forms, it is easy to overlook even its most extreme manifestations. A notable exception is when these occur in the celebration of Holy Mass, where they are as obtrusive as clowns at a funeral. My … Read more
Nearly half a century ago, L. Brent Bozell, Jr., and the editors of Triumph did some math. The editors in “The Catholic Vote” (1974) and Bozell in “Toward a Catholic Realpolitik” (1975) observed that Catholics, if unified, would be the most powerful voting bloc in the country and, in fact, the entire world. It’s a fairly … Read more
Jamie Forsythe always felt called to be a priest, according to a CBS News 5 February report. That calling persisted even after pleading guilty in 1989 to attempting to sexually abuse a 15-year-old Kansas boy, serving a prison sentence, and being laicized by the Catholic Archdiocese of Kansas City. Forsythe was released from prison after … Read more
The self-destruction of the Democratic Party is being accomplished so quickly and thoroughly that even Democrats are noticing it. Certainly, the increasing internecine bitterness of Democratic debates is evidence that something is deeply wrong. The problem isn’t just that socialism is growing like mold on the planks of the party platform. There’s an even deeper, … Read more