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
Russell Hittinger, whose father, grandfather, and other relatives are buried in Arlington Cemetery, had mentioned to Michael Jackson and Terry Hall a couple of months ago the existence, somewhere in the cemetery of a monument to Southern soldiers. I believe one of them even asked me to translate the Latin inscription on it. This is … Read more
The crypto-religious character of Communism is sufficient to explain the sympathy that it evokes among many genuinely religious people, especially in England and America, and this is more or less true of the other new political movements of which I have spoken. In Germany National Socialism, in spite of its clash with the Churches, has … Read more
In Trenton, not too long ago, not far from the State of New Jersey government buildings, by the Delaware River, I was in a lovely old stone church, beautiful inside, the oldest Catholic Church in that state, as its good Pastor, Msgr. Leonard Toomey told me. Sacred Heart, as I looked it up, dates from … Read more
Easter is the central mystery and feast of the Christian faith. Likewise, it is the only promise to mankind that, ultimately, means anything. The greatest, perhaps only service the Church can perform for each of us is to be sure we hear this message, this doctrine, as it is taught, not as some theologian, or … Read more
What is striking about scripture, often, I think, is its sense that what we have is first given to us. Isaiah, for instance, will say, “The Spirit of the Lord is given to me…” (61, 1). Paul will say to the Thessalonians, not merely that they should “think before they do anything” — which seems … Read more
Sometime in October, 1936, Msgr. Ronald Knox gave a sermon on St. Mary Magdalene, the traditional model of the contemplative life, in which he observed: The world… does not understand the love that waits, any more than the love that weeps. It is so impressed with the feeling that this and that needs doing here … Read more
Last Christmas I celebrated midnight Mass at the lovely Poor Clares’ Convent in Aptos (California) with an old friend from the University of Santa Clara, Father Edward Warren, S. J. This convent is in the parish to which my brother Jerry and his dear family belong, so we usually attend Christmas Mass either at Resurrection … Read more
After he referred to St. Francis of Assisi and Social Darwinism in his eloquent address to the Democratic Convention in San Francisco, Governor Mario Cuomo was briefly interviewed by Larry King on KCBS. King remarked on the reference to St. Francis. Cuomo then went on to G.K. Chesterton’s comment that St. Francis may have been … Read more
The “Bay-To-Breakers” foot race in San Francisco was something I figured that I should not miss — watching it, that is. So I walked down to the Four Mile Marker just in-side Golden Gate Park, off the Stanyon Street corner on Kennedy Drive. The leading runners came by me about five minutes after I arrived … Read more
The implications are as great as at any time since deterrence was developed in the 1950s. One of the curiosities of the current presidential campaign is that it has yet to catch fire (do pardon the expression) around the issue of nuclear weapons and nuclear strategy. The democrats profess faith in the freeze, and disbelief … Read more
In “The Wasteland,” T . S. Eliot wrote: There is not even silence in the mountain, But dry, sterile thunder without rain. Where we live, in large part, influences how we look at the natural phenomena which are so much an often unnoticed part of our daily lives — such things as wind, rain, floods, … Read more
“Tradition is the democracy of the dead” — G. K. Chesterton This sermon, long attributed to St. John Chrysostom, Patriarch of Constantinople (d. 407), and now traced by some scholars to an older tradition coming from St. Hippolytus (d. 235), has long been read in the Orthodox Midnight Easter Liturgy. This month Christians commemorate the … Read more
New York Senator Roscoe Conkling, a scion of the Gilded Age, is not ordinarily remembered in American history as a moral philosopher. But his gloss on a more-famous critique if patriotism is worth recalling: “When Dr. Johnson said that ‘Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,’ he overlooked the possibilities of Reform.” Conkling’s complaint, … Read more
At least five hierarchies (the German, US, Dutch, French, and Irish) have thought it advisable in the past year to make a statement on the morality of nuclear war and the issues surrounding it. Basil Cardinal Hume of London also wrote a very perceptive letter on this topic.’ The Irish statement was written after the … Read more
