Everyone who cares about freedom owes a great debt of gratitude to the people of Poland. That Poland was the trigger for the Revolution of 1989 in east central Europe is widely recognized throughout the world; and thus Poland gets (and deserves) high marks for its essential, even unique, role in the collapse of European … Read more
In C.S. Lewis’s Anthology of the remarks of George Macdonald, we read, “Until a man has love, it is well he should have fear. So long as there are wild beasts about, it is better to be afraid than secure.” The virtue of courage is normally understood as the virtue by which we rule our … Read more
Respondens autem angelus dixit mulieribus: Nolite timere vos: scio enim, quod Jesum, qui crucifixus est, quaeritis: non est hic: surrexit enim, sicut dixit . . . These Latin words are from the Gospel of Matthew, from the twenty-eighth chapter, the fifth and sixth verses. The scene is the resurrection morning. The women encounter an angel … Read more
This is March and it seems fitting to begin with something about Saint Patrick. Almost everyone knows that his Feast is March 17, two days before the Feast of Saint Joseph and eight days before the Feast of the Annunciation of Our Lady, on March 25. These days, throughout the land, in places like the … Read more
Don’t ask me why, but on Thanksgiving morning, before going over to friends for dinner, I was looking through L’Osservatore Romano. On the back page, I noticed that the Vatican Post Office had issued two postcards on “Bimillenary of Horace’s Death.” Quintus Horatius Flaccus, the great Latin poet, was born in Venosa, Lucania, near the … Read more
Once upon a January, many long years ago, I was born in a small town in Iowa. My recollections of this momentous event, naturally, remain somewhat vague. Actually, this is a great mercy, as you can readily realize, otherwise I might be tempted to write about it. As Chesterton said in his Autobiography, we have … Read more
In And the Beagles and the Bunnies Shall Lie Down Together, there is a sequence on the Great Pumpkin, Charles Schulz’s not-so-subtle homage to Christmas, about how the Great Pumpkin rises out of the Patch and looks for sincere boys and girls to whom to give lots of toys. Peppermint Patty and Linus are sitting … Read more
OXFORD—Courtesy of The Chesterton Review, I recently spent two days in Zagreb, trying to organize a small conference there on ethics and economics. Why Croatia? Why Chesterton? Those who’ve read The Napoleon of Notting Hill must know the answer; for those who haven’t, a few clues may explain. In the main square of Zagreb, near … Read more
Adoremus in Aeternum Sanctissimum Sacramentum!” the initial words of John Paul II, on June 12, 1993, when he was at the Eucharistic Congress in Seville, in Spain, in its famous Cathedral. The words mean simply, “Let us adore unto eternity the most Holy Sacrament.” The moving photo in L’Osservatore Romano (June 23) shows the Holy … Read more
This year, the mayor’s race in New York City — always of special interest to Americans — may just be more important than ever. This interest in New York, of course, is not because it is everyone’s favorite city. Yet, New York is a city most Americans have visited and all know about. The outlines … Read more
“Des conception, elle [la personne humaine] est destinee a la beatitude eternelle” [1703]. “Il n’y a pas de solution a la question sociale en dehors de l’Evangile” [1896]. To emphasize the central social teaching in the Catechism, I will leave in their French original two brief statements that undergird everything contained within this teaching. The … Read more
In 1770, Boswell records the following passage about Samuel Johnson in London: “He frequently gave all the silver in his pocket to the poor, who watched him, between his house and the tavern where he dined. He walked the streets at all hours, and said he was never robbed, for the rogues knew he had … Read more
My nephews, Steve and Mike, who introduced me to Mad magazine when they were respectively about three and two, sometimes protest when these columns become too metaphysical. Actually, they do not use the word metaphysical. The word they use is heavy. I tell them it is not my fault that they do not get the … Read more
In the fall of 1989, David Hollenbach, S.J., the prominent Catholic social ethicist who in the early 1980s had vigorously defended the theological and political acuity of the bishops’ controversial pastoral letter “The Challenge of Peace” (TCOP), noted that the document seemed “already dated.” Father Hollenbach attributed TCOP’S brief shelf-life to the extraordinary pace of … Read more
Before spring semester began, I sat down and read the remarkable new catechism that the Holy Father has just presented—Le Catechisme de l’Eglise Catholique (Paris: Mame/Plon). It was a welcome, indeed exhilarating experience. This book is not merely an aid to understanding the faith but itself a grace and even something of a miracle. I … Read more
1. Lent, le Careme in French, begins On Ash Wednesday; this year it falls on February 2.4. February is the shortest month, thus an appropriate time to state briefly what we think, thoughts, not just because we think them, but because we think them true. Pensees remind us of Pascal, Ash Wednesday of T.S. Eliot, … Read more
Editor’s note: The following article is an excerpt from Pope John Paul’s recent speech to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. It addresses the controversial, and much-misunderstood, Galileo condemnation, which is now officially void. A twofold question is at the heart of the debate of which Galileo was the center. The first is of the epistemological … Read more
One afternoon, I was in the Woodstock Center Xeroxing something or other. The young man in charge of the operations there told me that the following Friday he was singing at the Kennedy Center. The National Symphony Orchestra was doing Antonin Dvorak’s “Stabat Mater,” with the Czech conductor Zdenek Macal and the Oratorio Society of … Read more
Several months ago, I received a letter from Professor John Schrems at Villanova University, an old friend and classmate. A couple of years ago, the two of us had gathered together the remarkable academic essays of Father Charles N.R. McCoy (On the Intelligibility of Political Philosophy, Catholic University of America Press, 1989). McCoy had been … Read more
One of the most beautiful Masses of the Liturgical Year is that of All Saint’s Day, on November 1. I have always loved this Mass. I even wrote a poem about it once—no, relax, dear reader, I am not going to impose it on you here! The Mass’s first reading is that from Revelation about … Read more