I gratefully rely on Arts & Letters Daily to winnow through the dross to find genuinely interesting pieces from journals, blogs, and zines for which I have neither time nor inclination to search. Yet, I must admit I would have been happier for the site to not inform me about the so-called “Bling Ring” and … Read more
Chesterton once wrote that the madman is not the fellow who has lost his reason, but the fellow who has lost everything but his reason. Such a person, seized by a single monomaniacal idea, loses his balance, as if under the weight of a mental hyptertrophy on one side. Because a man may add five … Read more
Like flaming demons, Wallachians rushed out of the night and into the Turkish camp, striking terror in an army of terrorists. Leading the charge was a gore-spattered chieftain—hewing and hacking a path to the central tents where the Sultan huddled in fear. On he came, Vlad Dracul, raining down slaughter and raging for Mehmed’s blood. … Read more
Nothing conjures up summer quite like a bully, sure-’nough treasure: A kite, a dead rat and a string to swing it with, twelve marbles, part of a jew’s harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a spool-cannon, a key that doesn’t unlock anything, a fragment of chalk, a glass stopper of a decanter, … Read more
Is the world getting better or worse? It’s an important question, since the value of current social policy depends on the answer. Ordinary people tend to see current tendencies as a problem, but opinion leaders are more likely to discredit the past in favor of youth, novelty, and progress. With that in mind, mainstream public … Read more
“We are the pro-life generation.” “We are the generation that will end abortion.” “I survived Roe v. Wade. Roe v. Wade won’t survive me.” If you’re anywhere near the pro-life movement, read pro-life news, come to the March for Life or watch EWTN, you have seen and heard these brilliant slogans. At the March alone … Read more
Magic (art) is a part of daily life. Whenever parents raise children, teachers educate students, or rulers govern societies, they require the knowledge of the arts that teach these skills. They become magicians or artists by the masterpieces of their craft that evoke wonder and admiration for the beauty, goodness, or perfection their handiwork achieves. … Read more
D. A. Carson, a well-known Reformed theologian and exegete, has written a clear and well-reasoned analysis of today’s imperialistic tolerance from an Evangelical and classically liberal standpoint. He tells us that the new understanding of tolerance has meant a shift from accepting the right of others to hold dissenting views to demanding acceptance of such … Read more
It is not news to sober-minded observers that for the last half-century, equality in the U.S. has gone off the rails—politically, legally, morally, and culturally. Tocqueville had foreseen the eclipsing of liberty by the desire for equality in democratic republics like ours, and nowadays we see it vividly and routinely. Not only is the liberty … Read more
Last month I noted that Catholics need settings in which they can lead a Catholic life among Catholics. For most of us, loving God and living as Christians take schooling and support, which we aren’t going to get from the world at large. That may be one reason the Apostle Paul’s letters focus more on … Read more
“IRS officials have, of course, confessed that they inappropriately targeted conservative groups—especially those with ‘tea party’ or ‘patriot’ in their names—for extra scrutiny when they sought non-profit status. Allegations of abuse or harassment have since broadened to include groups conducting grassroots projects to ‘make America a better place to live,’ to promote classes about the … Read more
In his new book, George Weigel explicates the historical development of Evangelical Catholicism, a reform begun by Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), developed by the renewals of the early twentieth-century, formalized by Vatican II, and authoritatively interpreted by John Paul II and Benedict XVI, and now expressed with particular aplomb by Pope Francis. It’s a stunning … Read more
The revelations of the scandals within the Obama administration in the past couple of weeks make those of us who are old enough recall 1973, when Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s investigative reporting and then the hearings of a special Senate investigative committee brought to the public one astounding detail after another about Watergate. The … Read more
The womb and the tomb—one of the most striking mirror images that our lives have to offer. Babies are buried alive in their warm mothers’girth. Bodies are dead and buried in their cold mother earth. For one, there is the darkness of genesis and growth, for the other, the darkness of death and decay. The … Read more
As June approaches, get ready for the official celebration of “Gay Pride Month” by US embassies abroad. If sodomy and same-sex marriage are constitutional rights, what is their relationship to American foreign policy? Despite the tremendous controversy regarding these issues within the United States, the Obama administration has gone ahead and placed them at the … Read more
Edgar Allan Poe was missing. The year was 1849. There had been no trace of Mr. Poe for six days since he left Richmond, Virginia, on September 27th to travel back to his home in New York. His luggage was discovered at a Richmond tavern. Then, on the morning of October 3rd, he was found … Read more
I pointed out a month or two ago that the kind of meritocracy we have makes people stupid, mostly because it’s based on a technological attitude toward human life. Thought has an order, but not one we can fully grasp, so if it’s reduced to certified expertise and made a sort of industrial process it … Read more
Pope Leo XIII affirms that a well governed State will promote the material and moral prosperity of its citizens, will honor private property and free association, and will protect the poor from abuse or depredation by the rich. How to do these things? Leo lays down four principles. The first is what I’ll call the … Read more
People are curious. They like to know “what’s new.” Most people, whatever their background, do not, however, like to be proselytized, to be made unsettled in their normal beliefs and practices by some sharp stranger wanting to convert them to something or other. We tolerate many diverging views provided that their advocates do not seek … Read more
All I, myself, can do is to urge you to place friendship above every human concern that can be imagined! Nothing else in the whole world is so completely in harmony with nature, and nothing so utterly right, in prosperity and adversity alike. — Cicero, “On Friendship” Two men who meet to repair a stone … Read more
