A year from John now, Pope Paul II will do something that, even in the heightened context of the Jubilee, will have great significance. In a mass at the Roman Colosseum, the site of much early Christian heroism, he will commemorate the Catholic martyrs of the 20th century. For the world and, alas, even for … Read more
Christianity recounts the story of salvation in two ways. First, it recalls God’s work in history: the creation of the world, the Fall, the history of Israel, Christ’s Incarnation and Redemption, the end of the world, and our ultimate destination in the afterlife. All of this explains to us the nature of the universe in … Read more
Just before the beginning of Lent this year, the Washington Post “Style” section, the guide to so much of what is really important to the movers and shakers in the nation’s capital, carried a curious story. It seems that, in preparation for her several appearances before the House impeachment managers during the Senate trial, Monica … Read more
A little over a year ago, along with thousands of other foreigners, I was in Havana for John Paul II’s pilgrimage to Cuba (See “Our Man in Havana,” Crisis, April 1998). A lot has happened since. The Lewinsky scandal, which broke at the same time to the great annoyance of Cuban officials who were hoping … Read more
“You have to understand. We’re basically living in Sodom.” The figure who recently offered this cultural analysis is not a fundamentalist, a right-wing conspirator, a neo-Nazi, or any of the other fanatics who allegedly threaten to take over the American landscape as the Clinton presidency subsides. He is the dean of a distinguished private liberal … Read more
In the hoopla over the National Conference of Catholic Bishops’s unusually strong remarks during their annual meeting late last November about the life issues (“Living the Gospel of Life”), another serious remarkably weak statement passed virtually unnoticed. In his presidential “Statement on Iraq,” Bishop Pilla of Cleveland again brought the bishops’ conference close to endorsing … Read more
We are in the Christmas season, when public celebrating and gift-giving are at a height. At least some of us who are Christians try to remind ourselves amid the secular festivities and commercialism that the gifts we exchange are a reflection of the great gift that God gave us in sending Jesus into the world. … Read more
To paraphrase Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster slightly, it is November and another election is at our throats. At the best of times, going to the polls in modern democratic countries is a bittersweet affair—bitter because choosing our leaders has increasingly narrowed to mostly second-order disputes about economic prosperity, sweet because the old greatness of popular self-governance … Read more
The first time I went to a Broadway musical, the musicians in the pit shocked me. They had heard and seen the show thousands of times. Wonderful as it was, it no longer held any interest for them except during the moments they had to play. They could pick right up and deliver a sound … Read more
A young woman I know recently went for the physical exam required to enter college. The nurse in the doctor’s office began taking preliminary information. Along with the usual questions, she asked whether the young woman smoked: “Yes, a few cigarettes a day.” The nurse warned her that smoking was dangerous to her health, as … Read more
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, as People’s Exhibit A, I submit a proposal by the United Nations that may, among other things, make “enforced pregnancy” an international crime. Never heard of it? Let me explain. In the grand fashion of recent UN initiatives, a proposed treaty will establish an International Criminal Court (ICC) so … Read more
Excuse me, but as a reluctant child of the ’60s, I find myself still waiting for the revolution. The revolution in the sense that all great modern revolutionaries expected: The revolt of the most derided, denigrated, disrespected, dissed, and marginalized; the joyous throwing off of social shackles and the triumphant assumption of full human dignity … Read more
The British poet and classicist A. E. Houseman once felt obliged to take a colleague to task for simplifying his labors by ignoring a troublesome manuscript of the Roman poet Catullus. The scholar in question, said Houseman, presented a new twist on the classic pons asinorum: Like a donkey paralyzed equidistant from two bales of … Read more
A dissident labor leader, a faithful Cuban Catholic, said it best. Speaking with a group of Americans at a Havana hotel during the pope’s trip this past January, he explained, “What has Castro got on his side? La fuerza (force). That’s it.” Anti-Communists everywhere routinely make such statements, but this was not abstract talk. The … Read more
“The salvation of the West must come, if it is to come, from the United States. The salvation of the United States, if it is to come, must come from the Republican party. And the salvation of the Republican party, if it is to come, must come from the conservative movement within it. And the … Read more
With this column, your humble scribe completes two full years of Seeing Things. If of the making of books there is no end, in the making of magazines there is no rest. And in the making of magazines columns—res ipsa loquitur—there is no shame. Such is the declination of the columnist, lo, these many years … Read more
In a democracy, moderation is an important virtue. One of the central purposes of democratically constituted procedures is to provide a means by which wide differences in belief and practice may be negotiated without tearing apart human societies. And for that reason, we become wary about anything that may appear to be extremist. But a … Read more
In recent years, charity has gotten a bad reputation. The politicization of all dimensions of life has made even the most heroic efforts on behalf of others seem radically incomplete to certain minds. Thus, Mother Teresa was barely dead before the vultures—Christopher Hitchens and the vile ABC crew of Peter Jennings—accused her of failing to … Read more
The old spiritual masters—even the great ancient pagans—often advise us to look at things from the vantage point of our deathbeds. I recently had unusual confirmation of the wisdom of that advice. After six months between nursing home and hospital ICU this summer, my uncle, Raymond Royal, spent a whole day dying a hard death. … Read more
Today, even in historically Christian nations, we have to reconvert the culture. You may bring people, one by one, to Christ; you may hope that a Supreme Court decision will reverse decline. But whether you prefer the personal or institutional route, it’s either act now or passively watch cultural suicide. Then again, there is a … Read more
With so much happening in the Church right now, we are hard at work drawing out the battle plans so we can keep the faithful informed—but we need to know who we have on our side. Do you stand with Crisis Magazine?