The role America plays in the world today and for the foreseeable future—as her contribution to the health, wealth, and happiness of mankind in the 21st century—is something which is very much up to the American people themselves. They can, and will, choose whether that role is exemplary and determinant, the role of a leader … Read more
The role America plays in the world today and for the foreseeable future—as her contribution to the health, wealth, and happiness of mankind in the 21st century—is something which is very much up to the American people themselves. They can, and will, choose whether that role is exemplary and determinant, the role of a leader … Read more
Freedom — liberty — everyone clamors for it. Few know how to define exactly what it is, or how to get it, or how to handle it when they have it — least of all how to use it sensibly. They think freedom or liberty brings everything else worthwhile in its train. But as that … Read more
One of the central themes of our horrific century, now drawing to a merciful close, has been the attempt of many powerful and highly intelligent people to find a substitute for God as the focus and directing principle of their lives. Numerous such efforts have been made. All have ended in fearsome or pathetic failure. … Read more
Editor’s note: We reprint here a recent column by the eminent historian Paul Johnson for the London Spectator. The public is influenced not merely by the professional media but by self-proclaimed high-minded ideologues who exploit privileged positions in order to put forward extremist political views. There are two egregious categories of such people: clergymen and … Read more
Our century has witnessed a titanic struggle between the forces of collectivism and the forces of free enterprise, a struggle, if you like, between socialism and capitalism. As we approach the last decade, it appears that the battle, which began in earnest with Lenin’s seizure of power in Russia in 1917, will end in decisive … Read more
Christians who survey the world political scene, and who debate how the insights and guidance of their faith should teach them to respond to it, should beware above all of rigidity. For the political scene is never static. It moves all the time. The threats to Christian life posed by secular politics are always there, … Read more
Terrorism is the cancer of the modern world. No state is immune to it. It is a dynamic organism which attacks the healthy flesh of the surrounding society. It has the essential hallmark of malignant cancer: unless treated, and drastically, its growth is inexorable, until it poisons and engulfs the society on which it feeds … Read more
John Paul II inherited a church bewildered, divided and growing rapidly weaker — in short a church in manifest crisis. The Pope’s response has been a systematic strategy of restoration. How has he set about doing it? It is impossible to understand the present Pope’s work and strategy without examining the historical situation he inherited. … Read more
