My cousin Kathleen and her husband Chuck Oldsen were in Washington from San Diego for about a week this spring. One Sunday, we drove over to Gettysburg, a place I had not seen for almost thirty years, when I went with the late Father Dick Spillane. In many ways, Gettysburg remains the most powerful of … Read more
As Ronald Reagan comes to the end of his presidency, we can acknowledge that he has been almost the only public figure of his rank consistently to oppose abortion as a civil policy, with the intention of doing something about it. That he was not able to do more is almost exclusively due to the … Read more
In February, I was invited by my colleague, Professor Jan Karski, to attend a performance at the Kennedy Center of the Washington Dance Society. Professor Karski’s wife, Pola Nirenska, is a well-known director of modern dance. The final dance of the evening, set to some music by Ernest Bloch, was entitled “Dirge, 1981,” based on … Read more
James Boswell was in Wittenberg, in Saxony, on 0 30 September 1764, on his “Grand Tour” in Germany and Switzerland. He visited there the tombs of Luther and Melanchthon. The convent which housed the remains of these famous Protestant divines had, unfortunately, been “miserably shattered by the bombardments,” but the tombs were still intact. Boswell … Read more
A good friend sent me something off the Scripps-Howard wires the other day, a Denver dateline about how Coors Brewery manages its sales. In the article, Peter Coors stated, “Believe it or not, in the beer industry any more, you’re not really selling beer. You’re selling packaging, and you’re selling image….” No doubt, this observation … Read more
The lesson from Isaiah at Midnight Mass on Christmas reads, “Thou has increased their joy and given them great gladness.” I am often struck by the fact that in Christianity joy and gladness are not so much a product of our own activities but something much more, something that happens when all that the Greeks … Read more
My editor called up the other day from the deep recesses of downtown South Bend to remind me that my column for the present issue of Crisis was due. At first I thought of doing something on Nietzsche, or Allan Bloom, or Josef Pieper, if for no other reason than that their books were sitting … Read more
In his Autobiography, G.K. Chesterton, who as he tells us was in despair as a young man, decided finally that he had had enough of this pessimistic thought and had decided to revolt against it. He found very little help from the standard sources, he recalled: But as I was still thinking the thing out by … Read more
Dennis Bartlett, in San Francisco, lent me his copy of A Spiritual Aeneid, which is Ronald Knox’s autobiography, first published in 1918. Dennis has a 1958 Sheed & Ward edition with a Preface by Evelyn Waugh. I actually intend to return this book someday. As I also have an edition of The Pastoral Sermons of … Read more
“For who will dare to say or believe that it was not in God’s power to prevent both angels and men from sinning? But God preferred to leave this in their power, and thus to show both what evil could be wrought by their pride, and what good by His grace.” —St. Augustine, City of … Read more
Book III, Chapter 7 of St. Augustine’s Confessions is entitled, marvelously: He Deplores His Wretchedness, That Having Been Born Thirty-Two Years, He Had Not Yet Found Out The Truth. In a culture whose public (oftentimes even ecclesiastical) doctrine, is theoretical “pluralism” — that is, that there is no “truth” but one’s own private feelings — … Read more
My brother-in-law, Jerry Vertin, in Steven’s Point, Wisconsin, has a collection of Gilbert and Sullivan records. While I visited this summer, I was listening to the Yeoman of the Guard, which came with a printed libretto. In Act I, I came across the following passage of Jack Point: My masters, I pray you bear with … Read more
On Pentecost, 1986, John Paul II published a fundamental encyclical, Dominum et Vivificantem, on the “Holy Spirit in the Life of the Church and the World.” This encyclical is meant to be the third part of a series on the Trinity — still, as Frank Sheed used to remark, the most fascinating of topics to … Read more
For a course I gave recently on political philosophy and natural law, one of the books I had wanted to read, or reread, with my good class was C. S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man, a book I realized I had not taken a look at for some time, though its powerful theme has almost … Read more
The other day I received from Terry Hall at Catholicism in Crisis something of an assignment. During Lent, it seems, Terry had been reading The Private Prayers of Lancelot Andrewes. A certain passage kept recurring in them which went, in the Morning Prayer, “A good answer at the dreadful and fearful judgment seat of Jesus … Read more
The economic inequality between the northern and southern hemispheres is increasingly threatening the survival of the family of mankind; in the long run this may be no less a menace to the progress of history than are the arsenals of weapons with which East and West are already confronting one another. And thus new efforts … Read more
April 9, 1773, was Good Friday. For breakfast, James Boswell and Samuel Johnson had “tea and cross-buns.” From their morning repast they went to the lovely Church of St. Clement Danes, where Johnson had a “seat.” During the service, Boswell carefully observed Johnson and judged his demeanor to be “solemnly devout.” Boswell went on: “I … Read more
Managua, November 2-5. Peeling paint; warped plywood; shantytowns; rationed water; walls smeared with graffiti; unrelieved shabbiness. At night only a few streetlights poke themselves into the darkness; they too are rationed. Police kiosks, mounted on cement tripods, are falling over into street intersections they are meant to control — an engineering miscalculation. In response to … Read more
In Rome, on November 9, 1985, John Paul II addressed the sundry presidents and rectors of Jesuit colleges and universities in the world. (L’Osservatore Romano, English, Dec. 2, 1985.) The Pope began by praising university work and expressed his gratification for those who engage in it. He noted the special relationship that historically has existed … Read more
During a coffee break at the Old Post Office Building in Washington, I chanced into a conversation with Mr. Marcus Cohn, the noted communications lawyer, and Mr. George Farr of the Staff of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Mr. Cohn was congratulating Mr. Farr because he was, like Mr. Cohn, sporting a bow tie. … Read more
