I begin by asserting a principle that, if one troubles to read Scripture, the encyclicals of the popes, and the decrees of ecumenical councils, is simply unassailable. It is this: There is an inner identity between Catholic teaching on sex and Catholic teaching on the society. Pope Leo XIII is quite clear on these matters. … Read more
Not satisfied with a general failure to teach students basic arithmetic, the structure of the English language, the history of our nation, the rudiments of the physical sciences, and enough geographical knowledge to distinguish Sweden from Switzerland, the legislators of the state of California have determined to require that the public schools teach “Gay Studies.” … Read more
Recently I had a short contretemps with someone who said that her teenage son had come to a wonderful and intelligent conclusion about Homer’s Odyssey. He said that, when you stripped the beautiful language away, what you had left would make a good R-rated quest video game. She agreed with that assessment and grew angry when … Read more
Why, I wonder, do boys these days get no love? What have they done to deserve their treatment at our hands? Recently, a boy competing for his high school in the Iowa state wrestling tournament chose to forfeit his initial match rather than wrestle against a girl. He spoke about his decision with an admirable … Read more
The great Orthodox theologian Sergius Bulgakov writes that the world about us was made for us to exalt, to spiritualize, not because matter is in itself evil, but because the good that it possesses was meant to be united by man with the God whom man serves. That is the meaning of our being … Read more
In his autobiographical account of his youth and his conversion to the faith, Surprised by Joy, C. S. Lewis relates the almost inexplicable mingling of joy and sorrow he felt when he first read of the Norse myth of Balder, the handsome and large-hearted god who was slain by a trick practiced upon him by … Read more
That’s Chesterton’s idea, not mine. But he was surely right. Chesterton knew that, so long as the atheist remembers a Christmas of long ago, when it seemed that the stars themselves were made only that they might twinkle upon a stable in Bethlehem, he may yet someday become a man worthy of the boy he … Read more
“Man is a political animal,” said Aristotle, meaning that man is that sort of living creature who thrives best in the context of a polis, a free and self-governing city state. St. Thomas Aquinas would take up this dictum of Aristotle’s and flesh out its implications for a Christian culture, but before we consider that, … Read more
Sometimes a book puts down such deep roots in one’s soul that it seems always present, providing categories whereby one views the world, even when one has not read it in many years. Such a book for me has been The Culture of Narcissism, by Christopher Lasch, that renegade sociologist who should have been or … Read more
Recently my daughter Jessica and I spent some time traveling in Sweden, in the upcountry north of Uppsala. We don’t care for cities, and my daughter, no surprise here, is something of a traditionalist, so we visited old villages, well-preserved “gamlasgardar” or collocations of log cabins, barns, threshing floors, and so forth, and village churches. … Read more
“Submit yourselves one to another, as in the Lord,” says St. Paul, and then he follows his command with a list of applications, involving relationships among husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants, citizens and their magistrates, and all Christians and their elders in the Faith. The Christian life, as the saints and … Read more
“You see, I am not a Christian,” said the young man at lunch, chilling the conversation in an instant. He was exceptionally good looking, and obviously intelligent, but also obviously sad. His father, a former Protestant minister who was essentially driven out of his church for his faithfulness to the Scriptural directives regarding human sexuality, … Read more
When Dante rises with his guide Beatrice to the circle of the lovers, symbolized in Paradise by the planet Venus, he is told that the most brilliant and most deeply blessed of all the souls in that realm is Rahab, the harlot of Jerusalem who housed Joshua’s spies and assisted the children of Israel in … Read more
It had already been a harrowing spring for me and my family. Two weeks before, my daughter was walking our family pet, an eight-pound terrier, on a leash, when they were rushed by a big dog that grabbed ours by the neck and shook him to death. My wife was devastated; the little fellow had … Read more
Let us set aside, for the sake of this essay, various questions concerning the recent health-care bill passed by Congress. We will concede the highly dubious proposition that it will hold down costs; that it will not add hundreds of billions of dollars to the national debt; that it will not lead to the queues … Read more
Recently, one of our local high schools celebrated a state championship in track and field. Not remarkable, unless you consider that it was the school’s 16th championship in a row. On the same day, the same high school’s swimmers swept to victory in the state finals. It was their 21st straight championship. This school is … Read more
“Religion is divisive,” we Christians hear from our secularist critics, and have heard from them since that night of totalitarian cravings called the Enlightenment descended upon Europe from Paris to Prussia. “It needs to be kept in check, relegated to the closet, for the sake of a decent and civil society.” Yet exactly … Read more
“Why does this man receive sinners and eat with them?” grumbled the scribes and the Pharisees. Knowing the pride they harbored in their hearts, Jesus spoke to them this parable. “What man is there among you,” He said, “who, having lost one sheep, will not leave the other ninety nine in the wilderness to find … Read more
Whom have I in heaven but thee? So cried Asaph the psalmist. It is an astonishing moment in the history of man, for Asaph had looked upon the wicked and seen how they prospered. His feet had well nigh slipped, he says. Yet he held fast to two truths that had been revealed to him. … Read more
When I was a boy, I used to walk a mile or so into the woods behind my house, with only the family dog and my thoughts for company. I was lonely in those days, and still that loneliness is a mystery to me, even a source of some bittersweet nostalgia. I can almost remember … Read more