The latest revelations that yet another Connecticut Catholic priest has stolen yet another million dollars from his own parishioners to support a flamboyant gay lifestyle in New York City are especially disappointing to those of us who thought Connecticut’s religious leaders had learned a lesson the first time this happened in 2009. Many of us … Read more
When the history of 20th-century music is written in the next several hundred years, will it bear much resemblance to how we think of it now? I have long suspected that there is a hidden history of classical music during this period that would one day surface. I tried to write part of it in … Read more
When Dante rises with his guide Beatrice to the circle of the lovers, symbolized in Paradise by the planet Venus, he is told that the most brilliant and most deeply blessed of all the souls in that realm is Rahab, the harlot of Jerusalem who housed Joshua’s spies and assisted the children of Israel in … Read more
In the Australian on May 22, Tess Livingston covered the new translation of the Missal. This good work needed early explanation. George Cardinal Pell, who was instrumental in the English translation, remarked: “The previous translators seemed a bit embarrassed to refer to angels, sacrifice and perpetual virginity. They went softly on sin and redemption.” Â … Read more
I was recently in “old Europe” for a conference on Islam and to promote my new book, The Closing of the Muslim Mind (alas, not a work about music). However, what’s the point of being in old Europe without music? The very stones cry out for it. Therefore, I snuck in an opera in Vienna, … Read more
It had already been a harrowing spring for me and my family. Two weeks before, my daughter was walking our family pet, an eight-pound terrier, on a leash, when they were rushed by a big dog that grabbed ours by the neck and shook him to death. My wife was devastated; the little fellow had … Read more
After Easter, the passage from John 21 about the catch of 153 large fish in the Sea of Galilee comes up a couple of times. The disciples go night fishing. After a fruitless night, the Lord, from the shore, asks: “Have you caught anything?” “Nothing.” “Cast your nets on the right side of the boat.” … Read more
You cannot act for twenty-four hours without deciding either to hold people responsible or not to hold them responsible. Theology is a product far more practical than chemistry. Some Determinists fancy that Christianity invented a dogma like free will for fun — a mere contradiction. This is absurd. You have the contradiction wherever you are. … Read more
Spring quickens one’s sense of delight and lifts one’s spirits as the world awakens. Many puzzle over how the world began; I am still in wonder at how spring happens. With a child’s appetite for repetition, I am always ready to say: Do it again! This is my inspiration for focusing mostly on delightful music … Read more
I collect illuminating tidbits from Modernity and offer them to discriminating readers from time to time. Herewith are the most recent for your delectation. Â A Parade magazine poll on spirituality reported that “69% of Americans believe in God,” and that “77% pray outside of religious services.” While the article invites us to find encouragement … Read more
Let us set aside, for the sake of this essay, various questions concerning the recent health-care bill passed by Congress. We will concede the highly dubious proposition that it will hold down costs; that it will not add hundreds of billions of dollars to the national debt; that it will not lead to the queues … Read more
The Easter Antiphon, Regina Coeli, states that Christ “has arisen as He said.” This phrase is remarkable. It is one thing, however astounding, to maintain that Christ arose from the dead. But it is another thing to add that Christ arose just as He said that He would. Lazarus, for instance, did not know that … Read more
A friend in a nursing home left me this phone message at the beginning of Holy Week: “God came to us and we murdered Him, tortured Him to death, spat on Him. And now, all He asks of us is that we let Him forgive us. Some people won’t even do that. Isn’t that amazing? … Read more
Recently, one of our local high schools celebrated a state championship in track and field. Not remarkable, unless you consider that it was the school’s 16th championship in a row. On the same day, the same high school’s swimmers swept to victory in the state finals. It was their 21st straight championship. This school is … Read more
Many people these days are utopians of some variety. We think that we can get rid of the doom that stands over us by our own efforts. We can reorganize the polity, the family, education, or the economy so that things will be fine. We cannot accept that the issue has to do with ourselves, … Read more
As is happily the norm, I am inundated with CD releases that demand your attention. The music spans the 18th to the 20th centuries, so I shall proceed chronologically, having no other principle of organization at hand. This way you can simply skip the centuries you deplore and get to the good stuff. (That is … Read more
“Religion is divisive,” we Christians hear from our secularist critics, and have heard from them since that night of totalitarian cravings called the Enlightenment descended upon Europe from Paris to Prussia. “It needs to be kept in check, relegated to the closet, for the sake of a decent and civil society.” Yet exactly … Read more
Paul Johnson’s biography of Winston Churchill is itself an event (Viking, 2009). Johnson unabashedly admires the British statesman, and his book tells why. It begins: “Of all the towering figures of the twentieth century, both good and evil, Winston Churchill was the most valuable to humanity, and also the most likable. It is a joy … Read more
This month I will focus on contemporary music, by which I mean music of the 20th and 21st centuries. Music from this period has been my preoccupation: When discussions began about the possible content of my Morley Institute book, Surprised by Beauty (2002), it turned out that the majority of my columns from the … Read more
“Why does this man receive sinners and eat with them?” grumbled the scribes and the Pharisees. Knowing the pride they harbored in their hearts, Jesus spoke to them this parable. “What man is there among you,” He said, “who, having lost one sheep, will not leave the other ninety nine in the wilderness to find … Read more