Once again, Cardinal Bernardin has lectured on “The Consistent Ethic of Life” (February 10, in Washington) to the “new class” within the church, described by him as “diocesan social action directors and staff.” Once again, the UPI and several other newspapers “misinterpreted” the Consistent Ethic. So, two days later, the Cardinal sent his text with … Read more
The earliest reports on Pope John Paul II’s new encyclical letter “Concern for Social Reality” damaged the Pope’s reputation significantly. Only those who make the effort to give the whole letter a closer reading will feel their first sense of dismay alleviated. In geopolitical terms, the deepest dreams of the Pope’s pontificate have been to … Read more
The year of choice is here again. Through the frenetic primaries, the U.S. presidential candidates are coming to know the hills and valleys of America, the towns upon the plains, the neighborhoods of cities. The United States is not ruled by a professional political class. The parties do not nominate their candidates for highest office … Read more
An earlier book by Richard John Neuhaus, The Naked Public Square, is one of the most important religious books published in America since World War II. Still, his new volume The Catholic Moment may be of yet more universal weight. That Richard Neuhaus is bright no one has ever doubted; that he is a truly … Read more
The Path to Rome is one of the most delightful and well-beloved travel books in the English language — the story of Hilaire Belloc, age 31, on a walk from southern France to the far-off city of Rome. Or perhaps of Hilaire Belloc on a romp through the English language. Or perhaps of Hilaire Belloc … Read more
For American Catholics the most important publishing event in 1987 was the appearance of George Weigel’s magisterial study of Catholic thought on war and peace, Tranquillitas Ordinis: The Present Failure and Future Promise of American Catholic Thought on War and Peace (Oxford University Press). Mr. Weigel had the bravery to indict virtually the entire American … Read more
Clare Boothe Luce was a friend of Crisis from its beginnings — and even before its beginnings. As Cardinal O’Connor fondly recalls below, Mrs. Luce telephoned him often about the “damage” that the U.S. Catholic bishops were doing to the prospects for world peace and to the cause of liberty. For weeks, Clare urged me … Read more
Five years ago, when Ralph Mclnerny and I each contributed $1,000 to print the first number of Catholicism in Crisis, several commentators asked: “What crisis?” It wasn’t long, though, before national news magazines splashed the word CRISIS on their covers, linked to “the Catholic Church in America.” By now, many from all points of view … Read more
That Americans should beware of materialism, consumerism, and excessive individualism was one of Pope John Paul II’s major themes on his second visit to America. The pope lives in Europe, and Europeans have long held that Americans are peculiarly materialistic. The great and wise Catholic philosopher, Jacques Maritain, ambassador of France to the Holy See, … Read more
Let me say right out that Robert Bork is my friend. And, pretty soon, the whole country is going to see him up close, on television, and come to know him as I know him. I think he’s going to have the same effect Ollie North had. As Supreme Court nominee, I think he’s going … Read more
The big argument among Latin America’s Catholics today may be symbolized thus: Gustavo vs. Hernando. Gustavo Gutierrez is a sensitive, intelligent priest of Lima, Peru, the father of liberation theology. In his early writings (The Theology of Liberation, 1971), more than in his recent writings, Gustavo has argued that “class struggle” is a fact of … Read more
Ernesto Cardenal, the priest admonished by the Pope on the runway in Managua a few years ago, has written that Fidel Castro exhibits the qualities of a “Christian prophet.” Astonishingly, some North American Christians believe this. In the Jesuit magazine America Andrew A. Reding has recently written of Castro: “Here is one of those very … Read more
By a stroke of genius, the film The Name of the Rose (like the book itself) casts that fourteenth-century Sherlock Holmes and early Whig, the English monk Baskerville (Sean Connery), as a Dominican friar in the order of St. Thomas Aquinas. From the very first moments, Baskerville is committed to being attentive, to being engaged … Read more
The Catholic Church has done it again. It has dissented from the conventional wisdom of the “progressives” of our time. It has said what it thinks on the technologies of birth. What I like best about the Catholic Church is its self-respect. In an age when most church leaders elsewhere burn to appease the cultured … Read more
The New York Times is a great newspaper, even though it sometimes does present itself as a missionary sent to earth to enlighten Roman Catholic darkness. So often it pats the head of Catholic “progressives,” and scolds “traditionalists.” Consider this headline: Catholic Church Tenets Are Shaken by AIDS Among Clergy. The story (by Robert Lindsey) … Read more
Last December 22, before the Joint Economic Committee on Economics of the U.S. Congress, Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland of Milwaukee revealed a strange understanding of enterprise. Senator William Proxmire and Congressman David R. Obey, both from Wisconsin, listened to the Archbishop. When Chairman Obey asked the Archbishop about some views of the lay commission headed … Read more
Sao Paulo, Brazil, is described by some as “the multinational corporation capital of the world.” Dirty, busy, industrial, Sao Paulo smells and feels to a visitor a little like Pittsburgh or Detroit many years ago. Its surrounding hills are steep. Every few months, it seems, one barren hillside after another becomes suddenly overswept with a … Read more
Since no one else seems outraged, let me raise a small voice against the cruel method of torture that is being practiced in South Africa. It is not often shown in all its horror on TV. It is called “the necklace,” and it is symptomatic of troubles ahead. Suppose that you were trying to be … Read more
One of the achievements of the U.S. Catholic Bishops’ economic pastoral is its restoration to a place of honor of the classic Catholic concept of the common good. This step alone marks a reconnection of Catholic social thought to its Thomistic origins, at a moment in history in which certain themes of Thomistic thinking are … Read more
The tax reform of 1981 was far less sweeping than tax reform in 1986 promises to be. Nonetheless, a top advisor to the U.S. Catholic bishops has said the 1981 tax law can “in no way” be characterized as fair. Monsignor George G. Higgins so advised the bishops in his regular column last spring in … Read more
