Irish immigrants to the United States held the first Saint Patrick’s Day parade in New York in 1762. Over 250 years later, Saint Patrick’s Day parades are a big deal in New York City, with each borough boasting their own. One of these boroughs came under heavy fire this year regarding its Paddy parade. The … Read more
The #MeToo movement has finally reached Rome, and the wisdom of priestly celibacy is being hotly questioned. As it happens, H.G. Wells questioned it just as hotly nearly a century ago, and along many of the same lines. Though his denouncements of the Catholic Church and her priesthood have been largely forgotten, it is his … Read more
On Ash Wednesday, the White House released a statement from President Trump. “For Catholics and many other Christians,” it reads, “Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Lenten season that concludes with the joyful celebration of Easter Sunday. Today, millions of Christians will be marked on their foreheads with the sign of the cross. The … Read more
“Remember man, thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.” — Genesis 3:19 Every Catholic just loves Ash Wednesday, just as every Catholic just loves Lent. Those were my thoughts as I slipped out of church, my brow smeared with that stark Catholic smudge. Passing the young priest in the vestibule where he stood … Read more
Published 75 years ago in 1945, George Orwell’s Animal Farm presents revolution as a thing true to its name: revolving and returning like an infernal circle to the despotic power and blind capitulation originally repulsed. It is a principle suggestive of an ingrained brutality in political animals that cannot be broken. And the political animals … Read more
Pro-life America will march the Washington Mall on January 24, 2020, to protest the Supreme Court’s 1973 (Roe v. Wade) and 1992 (Planned Parenthood v. Casey) rulings to make abortion accessible without “undue burden” of law. Though January marks the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, this year the March for Life is looking ahead to … Read more
The Two Popes is not so much a picture as it is propaganda. The Netflix original follows the mode of the liberal media, presenting imagined interactions and conversations between Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis (when he was Cardinal Bergoglio) that further an agenda that is bent on denouncing the Catholic Church with slick cinematography. … Read more
As Time cries, “Advance!”, we look back on a year that might fill the mouth of Time with lamentation. The Syrian civil war, the Christchurch mosque massacre, economic collapse in Venezuela, Hong Kong protests, the El Paso Walmart shooting, the Sri Lanka Easter terror attack, the Notre-Dame fire, and political upheaval in America. What is … Read more
I had heard that this store went “all out” at Christmas, but I was still taken aback. Ten-foot-tall nutcrackers, sprawling miniature villages, plush snow unicorns, plastic pine trees encrusted with glitter and glass, jingle bell muzak at high volume, seasonally garish sweaters, gigantic drummer boys para-pum-pum-pumming, a marshmallow army of leering lawn inflatables, and a … Read more
There was an underbelly ripple when the news broke that Victoria’s Secret had called off its Christmas season “fashion show,” a prime-time network TV event featuring provocative displays of risqué lingerie. Cancel culture analysts have conjectured at an awareness of the brand’s lack of “body diversity” together with a growing sensitivity to the problem of … Read more
Bishop Richard J. Malone of the Diocese of Buffalo is “retiring” a couple of years early. After seven years of allegedly allowing priests accused of statutory rape and unwanted touching to remain in ministry, after concealing hundreds of pages of damning litigation documents from the public, after being secretly recorded calling an active parish priest … Read more
Published seventy years ago, in 1949, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a modern classic. As Americans in the Age of Oligarchy acquiesce to a mutable truth—a gospel according to Google—George Orwell’s dystopian nightmare is creeping into the American dream. Politicians openly lie. “Fake news” riddles the media. Moral relativism commonly and craftily validates immorality. It is all … Read more
The feminist writer Florynce Kennedy once said, “If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.” She didn’t give the left enough credit. Abortion has become a kind of “sacrament” because women can get pregnant. Abortion has morphed from a taboo tragedy to a constitutional right: a sine qua non of the Democratic Party, … Read more
Have you ever dared to go inside one of those Halloween outlets that crop up a month before October 31? Besides high-priced trash, these shops offer an insight into what Dante might have conceived for our times in his Inferno, portraying the horrors and monstrosities that are housed in the heart of our society with … Read more
When godlessness reigns, it’s not surprising to see false gods rise in response to the human hunger for spiritual fulfillment. It is surprising, however, to see people turn to death to fulfill their lives. In recent decades, a cult has risen out of Mexico with an unholy rival to the Virgin of Guadalupe: Nuestra Señora … Read more
After Colin Clive uttered his mad crescendo of “It’s alive!” in the 1931 film Frankenstein, he screamed a line that censorship boards judged as blasphemous. So, a thunderclap was added to obscure him raving, “Now I know what it feels like to be God!” Shocking. What’s even more shocking is that there was such sensitivity … Read more
In the waning days of summer, 1974, a man named Philippe Petit dared to do something beautiful. Petit, a professional funambulist, pulled off an undercover job tantamount to a heist, illegally securing a cable between the nearly completed World Trade Center Towers in New York City. He had walked a wire between the towers of … Read more
For all their disagreements, scientific fact and science fiction are in agreement concerning the viral quality of fear. Men tend to panic when the wind changes overnight and blows beyond their control. Pandemonium is never as distant as a complacent people imagine. Civilized society is not immune from collapse just because it is civilized. Ingenuity … Read more
The murder mystery is as old as murder. When the blood of Abel cried out for justice, the all-seeing Judge took up the case and Cain was caught in his crime. So it was, and so it is. All are Cain to one extent or another, murdering what is precious in their own lives. The … Read more
With the unfolding of spring comes a renewed awareness and appreciation for life. It is peculiar, though, how the observation of life, birth, and the rounds of nature’s dance can lead to the contemplation of death. Resurrection requires that life conclude before it may rise again. Spring can, as a result, be solemn even as … Read more