My brother Dick was a missionary priest of the Holy Cross Fathers, and was then studying Arabic for a future career, he hoped, as a scholar of Islam; he was also teaching at Notre Dame College in Dacca. During the Muslim-Hindu riots of that time he went to the assistance of an elderly priest living … Read more
Some political philosophers argue that the American republic is “ill-founded” because founded on Hobbesian and Lockean principles, which are (a) wrong in themselves and (b) incompatible with traditional principles of natural law, virtue, and character. This makes doubtful the recent Christian language of rights, and masks contradictions within it. Father Fortin in this issue offers … Read more
[These remarks were delivered on the announcement of the 1994 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, March 8, 1994, in New York City.] One of my favorite images is the white-hot ingot, such as I often saw while I was a youngster in the yards of Bethlehem Steel in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The ingot suggested how … Read more
Welfare EWAWKI! Tug on the welfare question today and you pull out many tangled strands: The limits of state action, the role of incentives, the law of unintended consequences, pain alleviated, harm done, the efficacy of private alternatives, the destruction of a culture of virtue. This issue of CRISIS takes a hard look at the … Read more
Priests! Forty-seven years ago, at the tail end of my thirteenth year, my father reluctantly took me to the train in Pittsburgh that would carry me out to South Bend, Indiana, to Holy Cross Seminary. He thought I was too young to enter the seminary even if I did want to become a priest—which he … Read more
Astonishingly, we are witnessing in our time one of the most fruitful periods for the charism of reconciliation with Rome in the history of the Catholic Church in America. A pride of young lions in the Christian faith, coming from every ecclesiastical tradition and from none, has slowly been assembling in the Roman communion. The … Read more
Another cold and miserable January has come around, another March on Washington is scheduled, to stir the conscience of our fellow citizens about the terrible deeds done daily in our midst. Legally, with the full blessing of the American State, private acts of violence are reaching every day into the haven of new life in … Read more
The Hope of Splendor Our sister publication Commonweal (October 22) put together a stimulating set of commentaries on The Splendor of Truth, and with breathtaking speed—a splendid example of editorial foresight and efficiency. The range of opinion is impressive, too (from Charles Curran to Janet Smith, from Stanley Hauer was to Sister Anne Patrick). The … Read more
Last month, Pope John Paul II, who early in his pontificate aimed at reuniting Eastern and Western Europe, then divided by the Iron Curtain, celebrated his fifteenth anniversary in office, that job done. It took a miracle, but it’s done. If you don’t believe the miracle part, think back to 1979 and the Soviet invasion … Read more
It is a privilege to voice our warmest congratulations to Russell Kirk on the occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday, and to glory with him in his abundant literary accomplishments. The books of Russell Kirk will be read with pleasure generations hence; for they are, as he often says, about “the Permanent Things.” His prose is … Read more
All over the world, lapel buttons inscribed communism have fallen like autumn leaves; but not only buttons marked communism, also those inscribed socialism. Thus, the collapse of “real existing socialism” in its stronghold in the former Soviet Union is still rippling through the structures of international socialism. Economically, this collapse was radical. It proved that … Read more
June is a happy month to stress the office of the papacy, for it is the month of two great saints’ days, the feast of Saint Thomas More, one of the greatest saints of the English-speaking world, and the feast of Saints Peter and Paul. Both of these celebrations are linked—it was for his fidelity … Read more
Much outstanding work has been done by the greatest minds of our century to bring to light the true character of modernity to clarify the nature of its break with premodernity and to propose new and better ways of relating them to each other. With rare exceptions, theologians, who have a vital stake in the … Read more
The day Bill Clinton lost the election of 1996 fell on Friday, January 22, 1993, two days after he took the oath of office. It had taken him less than 48 hours to enlarge the circle of those who would die from abortion; his first executive orders were death orders. He opened military hospitals to … Read more
Ralph McInerny and I launched this journal in November 1982 with approximately $3,000 of our own money. We weren’t sure we’d last for a second issue, let alone for ten years. Thanks to the more than 300 writers who have appeared in these pages since then, and the thousands of readers who have supported us, … Read more
Twenty-eight years ago, I published a book called A New Generation: American and Catholic, and a little later served as advisor to a new national student publication founded by a senior at Holy Cross College, Charles Crofton, called A New Generation. This brave journal was taken over in its second year by Peter and Peggy … Read more
A magazine like Crisis does not endorse candidates. As the reader may discover from the round robin in this issue, its writers are deeply divided with regard to presidential candidates George Bush and Bill Clinton. Just the same, journals of opinion have an obligation to provide an interpretation of events. And one of the prerogatives, … Read more
America’s most famous contemporary philosopher, Richard Rorty, has at first glance made it easier now to write from the express viewpoint of Christian (or any other) faith. There is no mirror of nature, he writes. There are no objective foundations for knowledge. There is nothing over against which to measure the mind. There is, as … Read more
There is a song one sings in Polish to a man for whom one wishes to express love and honor: “May he live, may he live, one hundred years!” May he live so many years, indeed—Pope John Paul II, whose great encyclical of one year ago today was called “The Hundredth Year.” His pontificate has … Read more
Editor’s note: This essay is adapted from a luncheon address to the New York State Catholic Conference in Albany on January 14. It is probably fair to say that we Catholics, being more or less of immigrant and peasant background, have been a little slower than some others to show our capacity to associate together … Read more