Whenever I come across Groucho Marx’s advice about never wanting to join a club that would have someone like him as a member, I immediately think of the Roman Catholic Church, whose admission standards are considerably more relaxed. In fact, so wildly promiscuous is Old Mother Church that even Groucho Marx would be welcome. She … Read more
The other night, Glenn Youngkin was on Tucker Carlson (which has long been my drug of choice) talking about his recent, stunning upset of Terry McAuliffe in the race to become Virginia’s next Governor. Here is a guy who, despite being 6’ 7” tall, had hardly been noticed by anyone until he decided to enter … Read more
Someone once told me about a priest he knew who, for all the apparent pointlessness of the exercise, continued to pray for the conversion of St. Augustine. When it was suggested that perhaps his prayers might be more usefully deployed in helping sinners, the priest would insist that it was perfectly plausible for God, existing … Read more
If I were a convert, which I am not, I think I’d rather resent hearing the Pope tell me that I’d made a mistake in becoming one. It seems rather off-putting, don’t you think, to go ahead and pope, only to have the real one in Rome suddenly announce that maybe you shouldn’t have? What’s … Read more
A great sea change came over my life when, quite by accident, I first stumbled upon a copy of Joseph Ratzinger’s Introduction to Christianity. Based on a set of lectures, given in the summer of 1967, that captivated large numbers of German university students, it appeared in English two years later. I discovered it several … Read more
O martyrs of God, your race is run, All thanks to his redeeming Son. You’ve vanquished every foe, Eternal joys are yours to know. “What is uniquely Christian,” declared Hans Urs von Balthasar near the end of the Second Vatican Council—widespread forgetfulness of that fact having seeped into the soul of Christendom—“begins and ends with … Read more
It wasn’t long after I’d left South Vietnam for good—my year-long tour of duty having abruptly ended two weeks early, owing to growing enemy encirclement of the country—that the news broke that Saigon had finally fallen. This was in April of 1975, and by then America’s appetite for war had pretty much been exhausted. I … Read more
On the 14th of May in 1940, following a massive invasion four days earlier by the German High Command, Holland was forced to surrender, along with Luxembourg and Belgium, each fated to spend the next five years in a state of brutal subjugation under the heel of the Third Reich. Wholesale deportations soon began, especially … Read more
Dorothy Day—who died in 1980 and was declared a Servant of God in 2012—was widely hailed as a great hero of the Catholic Left, even as her fierce orthodoxy baffled and embarrassed liberal Catholics everywhere. Yet it was Miss Day, this icon of Catholic progressivism, who famously said, “If the Cardinal ordered me to stop … Read more
If revenge, as the proverbial saying has it, is a dish best served cold, then the story of Joseph in the Book of Genesis provides all the ingredients for a perfect meal. Sold into slavery by the treachery of his brothers, Joseph is carried off into Egypt where, after years of exile and loss, he … Read more
Someone asked me the other day which saint to turn to when one is struck by a migraine. Since I’ve never had one, I didn’t know. So, I suggested we do a Google search so that we’d both know. Turns out there are two intercessory experts, Gemma Galgani and Teresa of Avila, both of whom … Read more
So, Joe Biden did not, after all, interrupt his preparations for the planned Super Summit with Vladimir Putin the other day in order to fly down to Rome and see the pope. It is just as well, perhaps, inasmuch as the Vatican having nixed the notion of allowing Biden to attend morning Mass with His … Read more
I had an epiphany the other evening while flying from one airport to another in a world whose contours have grown less and less familiar to me. Far less friendly, too. It may be worth sharing since others, I suspect, may have been similarly struck. Actually, it hit me long before boarding the plane; in … Read more
It will soon be thirty years since the implosion of the Soviet Union. That liberating event took place on the last day of August in 1991, exactly twenty-one months after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Will there be celebrations to mark the anniversary? Not if Europe and the West have grown so forgetful of … Read more
There is an unforgettable moment near the end of A Man for All Seasons (a perfectly fabulous film, which won a busload of awards—including Best Picture of the Year in 1966, starring Paul Scofield as the saintly Thomas More). It is the courtroom scene where More, following his betrayal by Master Richard Rich, whose perjured … Read more
More than a half century has elapsed since the murder of Martin Luther King. How did the nation react to his killing? The answer is easy. There was an immediate outpouring of near universal grief and outrage. And it was not limited to any particular race or political persuasion. Americans everywhere were horrified by what … Read more
I was away for a few days recently, an experience I cannot recommend enough. Few pleasures can compare with those that come undistracted by news media. What wonders it does for the soul! Of course, sooner or later, you’ve got to resurface and, in my case, that was at the airport where, amid a sea … Read more
There was once a thriving little town in Central Europe where almost everyone was Jewish and they all had a job. The single exception, it seems, was the Village Idiot who, when offered work, refused to take it. What was the job? It was to wait at the outskirts of the village for the arrival … Read more
One of the earliest memories I have of Franciscan University, which is the school in Steubenville, Ohio where I teach, took place one evening years ago while leaving my office to go home. Fr. Benedict Groeschel, a wise and holy priest who founded the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, and who himself went home (to … Read more
When I first heard the story of a silly nun who’d gotten herself ordained as a Protestant priestess while teaching theology at a major Catholic University, I was not surprised. Nor was I surprised to learn of the subsequent lawsuit she filed to prevent her being fired. What did surprise me, however, was the fact … Read more