The latest blast from Rome about the Tridentine Mass has roused all sorts of justified reactions. Many bishops—ranging from those concerned about souls to those worried about finances—have found various ways of ignoring it or setting it aside—at least for the moment. The more legal-minded have looked at different aspects, ranging from whether or not … Read more
For those who use as their calendar that great barometer of the year, i.e., the seasonal sales displays in retail stores and supermarkets, the passing of February’s red hearts for St. Valentine’s Day (or green shamrocks a month later for St. Patrick’s) makes way for Easter baskets and egg coloring kits. Indeed, for those of … Read more
Two of the Western World’s most venerable institutions are the Holy See and the British Monarchy. Love them or hate them, between them they encompass a large chunk of religious, cultural, and political history; without them, our world as it is would be unimaginable. At the moment, however, the one is led by an avowed … Read more
I have to admit many prejudices. I don’t usually read anything recommended by Father James Martin, SJ. I usually avoid the National Catholic Reporter, as forever burned in my memory from one of their articles—by the redoubtable Rosemary Radford Ruether—is the most fatuous line I have ever read: “The recent election of Joseph Ratzinger as … Read more
Despite the deepest hopes of many die-hard Trump supporters that the outgoing president would somehow snatch victory from defeat at the eleventh hour, Joe Biden is to be inaugurated today. Our second nominally Catholic president shall no doubt wish to ceremonially cloak himself in Kennedy’s mantle; unfortunately for him, both COVID-19 restrictions and the odd … Read more
The Congressional certification of the 2020 presidential election scheduled for today shows every sign of becoming a real circus. Whether the efforts of the President and his supporters—namely, to undo what is widely considered to have been a spectacularly fraudulent election—will succeed or not will may be known by the time you read these words. … Read more
After New Year’s Day, millions of schoolchildren from kindergarten to university will troop back into their education factories. There, the work of turning their heads to mush shall resume at the hands of their… ah, educators. This might seem a bit strident on my part; however, the truth is that events across the country (since … Read more
For many of us, 2020 has been a difficult year. (Yes, I am aware of the understatement!) Covid-19, along with its ensuing restrictions and economic and personal upheaval, the rioting, election madness, and all the rest of the public horror has for many of us been combined with personal losses, especially the deaths of family … Read more
Perhaps because of the severity of the Covid restrictions currently in place, the public in Austria has had more pressing worries than the follow-up investigation into the Islamic terrorist murder spree on November 2. The All Souls’ Day massacre that claimed the lives of three people in Vienna’s downtown district as well as the twenty-year-old … Read more
In our post-democratic era, there are all sorts of questions of identity being bandied around the post-Christian West, not least in our own United States. The dominant view for over two centuries saw this nation as primarily an instrument of freedom, firstly for itself, and then for all the world. For those of a conservative … Read more
When I was a boy in Hollywood, in the palmy days of the mid-sixties, my father (in addition to his grocery-and-rent-paying engineering job) wrote screenplays. None of these were ever sold, alas. But while I watched Batman and the Green Hornet, and stood bemused at the antics of the hippies, Dad’s fertile imagination ground out … Read more
If the past month has been chaotic in America, it has seen some bloody scenes here in Europe. On the morning of October 29, a 21-year old Tunisian national entered the Basilica of Notre Dame in Nice, France began knifing the three people he found there. He virtually severed the head of an elderly lady, … Read more
As all the world knows, the election of 2020 was destined to be messy, as the two nations inhabiting the territory of these United States geared up for battle: after four years of nonstop media abuse, in which the major news generators had long since abandoned any pretense to impartiality, both sides were spoiling for … Read more
The recent arrest of Father Travis John Clark of Saints Peter and Paul Church in Pearl River, Louisiana, opened up a rather lurid story. Apparently, the cleric in question had hired two self-described dominatrices to engage in sex with him. On the altar. On camera. One of the… ah, ladies in question had posted on … Read more
Today is the feast of the Blessed Emperor, Charles I of Austria-Hungary. The release of my new biography of the saintly monarch last month have for obvious reasons brought him to my mind in recent days. Added to this is the impending dedication of the 16th shrine in his honor in these United States, at … Read more
Few candid observers today will deny that the asylum of modern life is truly run by the inmates. This home truth was brought home to me yet again by two very different news stories—one of international interest, the other purely local (and that from a town I have only been to a few times). The … Read more
One of the disturbing things about the Cult of Wokeness is how many venerated institutions—educational, cultural, religious, and so on—have succumbed to it, as per our earlier published “Woke List.” One such that did not make that admittedly non-exhaustive numbering was the National Association of Independent Schools, the umbrella group for many of the most … Read more
Amidst the witches’ sabbath that the news has become, a rather pleasant centennial has come and gone—that of the birth of Ray Bradbury. The late Mr. Bradbury is author of such novels as The Martian Chronicles and Something Wicked This Way Comes, numerous short stories, plays, and film and television scripts. It was my pleasure … Read more
As America’s major cities continue to be besieged both by rioters and inane local governments, and as increasing numbers of individuals are being attacked for dissenting from the elites’ party line regarding race and gender via “cancelling” and “doxxing,” we deem it to be in the public interest to identify those organizations in government, education … Read more
In a year filled with craziness across the United States and the formerly Christian world, two things in particular—apparently unrelated—have hit me especially hard: the burning of Mission San Gabriel in the eponymous town in Southern California, and the retrogression in status of Constantinople’s Hagia Sophia from museum to mosque. Of course, there were other … Read more
