Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just. Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must Disappointment all I endeavor end? — Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. If success in this world, never mind the numerous and noisy proponents of the health and wealth gospel, … Read more
“This is the saddest story I have ever heard.” So begins one of the finest novels written in English in the last century, The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford. It is not, however, the saddest story ever told. That distinction belongs to a tale told in Aramaic back in the first century, which was … Read more
While it is certainly true that all roads lead to Rome, there is something to be said for all those other roads leading out from Rome. In other words, before we set out on the road to Rome, shouldn’t there be something already in place, in Rome, the gravitational pull of which first radiates out … Read more
I first met Fritz Wilhelmsen (1923-1996) in the summer of 1970, falling at once under the spell of his magic. Such a long time ago it all was, too. Yet I remember it all as if it were but yesterday. There I was, this naïve and provincial American undergraduate, strangely catapulted by circumstance (and God) … Read more
Of all the conundrums that have come to vex and confound us, there are three that continue uniquely to rivet the attention. Each provides a key to the great and enduring realities of the Christian life. What can we know (Faith)? What ought we to do (Charity)? And, finally, in whom may we trust (Hope)? … Read more
When New Jersey-born novelist Philip Roth, arguably America’s most acclaimed author, turned eighty last month, his home town of Newark rolled out the red carpet, determined to honor a local luminary whose fame had reached into every corner of American cultural life. Did I say fame? Maybe the more honest appellation should be infamy, since … Read more
How blessedly instructive it has been, following the installation of the first pope from the Americas, Pope Francis, to witness the world’s sheer unaffected delight in this man. His warmth and simplicity have endeared him everywhere. Indeed, he has disarmed us all by the spontaneity of his style. Of course—it needs straightaway to be said—none … Read more
As anyone with half-a-brain knows, success in the publishing world is measured by the number of books sold. What many do not know, of course, is that there are only two categories that perennially produce best sellers. Cookbooks and diet books. How wonderfully self-cancelling they are, too. While the one will tell you what to … Read more
Imagine members of the lay faithful being invited to instruct the cardinals who come to Rome to select a new pope. They would be asked precisely whom they would choose as successor to St. Peter. Of course the cardinals are not obliged to take counsel with mere mortals. However avid some of us might be … Read more
It must be because February is so fleeting that one naturally assumes the news cycle will follow suit. Less calendar time translates into fewer stories, right? Wrong. Recent events have blown that thesis completely out of the water. Begin with the announcement of a papal resignation—could anything be more newsworthy? It will take effect by … Read more
The current situation in which American Catholics find themselves at sword’s point with a government bent on imposing an agenda hostile to both human life and religious liberty, puts me in mind of a similar dust-up forty some years ago. The year was 1970, Paul VI was on the chair of St. Peter, and the … Read more
One of the funniest men who ever lived, W.C. Fields, whose mask of comic malevolence will live forever, was asked once if he liked children. He replied instantly: “I like children—fried.” His view of dogs and women was scarcely any better. Women he regarded rather as elephants: “I like to look at ‘em, but I … Read more
Forty years ago this month, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down every law in the land protecting the right of any child simply to be born. All at once, amid the sound and fury of imploding statutes, the most dangerous place in America became a mother’s womb. Since Roe v. Wade authorized … Read more
It was, not so very long ago, widely regarded in this country as morally wrong and, not infrequently, socially ruinous, for a man to walk out on his wife and children. In 1961, for example, Nelson Rockefeller, who was then Governor of New York, decided to divorce his wife of more than twenty years, for … Read more
When does it become impermissable for a self-governing people to pass laws that will ensure the survival of the things they love? When they no longer command a majority of the electorate? Is that the standard? Certainly among people of democratic disposition, it is a constitutional given that any time a plurality of voters take … Read more
On first hearing the news that Calvin Coolidge had died, humorist Dorothy Parker impishly asked, “How could they tell?” I thought of that the other day when a friend told me that the Winter Solstice was coming, thus giving us the shortest day and the longest night of the year. Living in a place where, … Read more
Nowadays it seems half the world remains riveted on Poland. And why not, given the recent extraordinary electricity of events there. After all, her most celebrated son returned, to remind his beleaguered countrymen of the facts of their solidarity before God and His Blessed Mother; to remind, too, their government of those facts, contempt for … Read more