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
In an interview this past April with Lucio Brunelli of the Italian Catholic magazine 30 Giorni, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger described dissent among American Catholic moral theologians as the expression of a more pernicious disorder: a “bourgeois Christianity in which Christianity is no longer a spur toward new responses and new hope in the face of … 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
“Baby Jesus Saved by Plastic Reindeer.” That should have been among the many headlines of March 6, 1984 heralding the Supreme Court’s most celebrated church-state ruling of the eighties. At least, that is precisely what the decision amounted to. The Court concluded that, were it not for the inclusion of such “secular” figures as Rudolph … 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
Eric Voegelin’s thesis that Gnostic ideology is dominant in the modern mind, including the religious mind, because of the weakness of Christian faith, has been much on my mind of late. In a sense, nothing is more curious than the susceptibility of apparently free, intelligent Christians to ideologies, which have parodied or replaced Christianity, even … 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
Tom and Barbara Donohue—now in Los Angeles—I had known during my early Roman days, when Tom was in the legal division of the Navy at the Embassy on the Via Veneto. When I came to Georgetown in the late 70s, they—such was my good fortune—had me look up Don and Connie Kerwin, old friends of … Read more
In response to Crevecoeur’s classic question, “What, then, is the American, this new man?” John Courtney Murray offered a classic answer: the American is the bearer of a proposition. At the beginning of We Hold These Truths—whose silver anniversary of publication we mark this year—Murray noted that, “It is classic American doctrine, immortally asserted by … Read more
At supper at Xavier Hall at the University of San Francisco last summer, I was talking with Father William Monihan, a man who knows as much about books as anyone I know and whose annual symposia at USF are so stimulating. Somehow, he had just come into contact with Eric Voegelin and was, as we … Read more
Editor’s Note: The following essay originally appeared as the Introduction to Hilaire Belloc’s classic work. The Servile State, published by Liberty Classics (7440 N. Shadeland, Indianapolis, Indiana 46250). It is reprinted here with the kind permission of Mr. Nisbet and the publisher. Very early in the first chapter Hilaire Belloc defines J the servile state: … Read more
The managing editor of Catholicism in Crisis forwarded a letter addressed to me via his office from a gentleman in Canada. Terry Hall figured that perhaps Schall could “do” something with it. On what appears to be a photocopy, with no salutation, so the letter may be sent around elsewhere, the reader is informed that … Read more
A Reverie, by George Weigel Author’s Note: This astonishing interview with President Reagan, recently conducted by Sam Donaldson of ABC News, has come into my possession through means best left to the reader’s imagination. Donaldson, whom cartoonist Garry Trudeau has aptly lampooned as the “Human Megaphone,” is a notoriously crusty questioner; one would like to … Read more
On the way back to California from Washington, last summer, I decided to take a Greyhound at least part of the way. The bus went through lovely Western Maryland, to Cumberland of fond memories, up through Morgantown, the “Penn Alps,” to Clarksburg and Parkersburg in West Virginia, across the Ohio River to Athens in Ohio, … Read more
