Twenty years ago, the American Catholic thinker Michael Novak put his head together with his friend Rocco Buttiglione, a distinguished Italian thinker, to see what might be done about educating a new cadre of young Catholic leaders in the social doctrine of the Church. John Paul II’s recently released social encyclical, Centesimus Annus, seemed an … Read more
Whatever its other accomplishments, Henry Kissinger’s new book, On China, ought to cause serious reconsideration of that now-familiar refrain, “China-is-the-lead-country-of-the-future.” Kissinger’s analysis of Chinese history has been criticized, as has his reticence about evils like the massacres at Tiananmen Square. But his conclusion — that China’s future depends on the resolution of the conflict between … Read more
In a recent article, Yale professor David Gelernter noted that modern America had “two extraordinary accomplishments: victory in the Cold War and the all-but-eradication of race prejudice in a single generation.” The back story of the latter is worth pondering around Independence Day. When I was growing up in Baltimore in the 1950s, everything and … Read more
Soho, in the West End of the British capital, has had a rather dodgy history. Wikipedia notes that, by the mid-19th century, “all respectable families had moved away, and prostitutes, music halls and small theaters had moved in.” So had Rev. Arthur O’Leary, who, in 1792, established in Soho the first Catholic church since the … Read more
Amidst the excitement of John Paul II’s beatification on May 1, the 20th anniversary of the late pope’s most important social encyclical, Centesimus Annus, got a bit lost. Blessed John Paul II was not a man given to rubbing it in. Still, it is worth noting that the encyclical, which celebrated the collapse of European … Read more
Five years ago, I made the argument for Hoosiers as the greatest sports movie ever and lamented the absence of great baseball films. Hoosiers is still the gold standard, but a confession is in order: There is a great baseball movie; it ranks right up there in the cinematic sports pantheon; and on this golden … Read more
In recent centuries, the College of Cardinals has not been noted for its boyishness. Indeed, one of the human fascinations of a conclave is that it’s a rare opportunity to see a deliberation-with-consequences conducted by elderly men. This can have its downside: According to one story, perhaps apocryphal, a very old cardinal kept writing “Achille … Read more
The debate over Catholic social doctrine and U.S. social welfare policy took an unhelpful turn in May when a gaggle of academics fired a shot across the bow of House Speaker John Boehner, prior to his commencement address at the Catholic University of America. Their charge? That Boehner’s House voting record showed him to be … Read more
A son of Poland is now Blessed John Paul II. What is Poland to do now? If a friend might offer a suggestion: The Church in Poland should start looking forward rather than backward. Ever since the late pope’s death in 2005, the Polish Church seems to have been looking over its shoulder at the … Read more
The death of Osama bin Laden did not end the war against jihadism, a war bin Laden had declared against the United States in a 1996 fatwa that mandated the killing of Americans wherever they could be targeted. But it did take one key leader of jihadist Islam off the global strategic chessboard. The death … Read more
Lander, Wyoming, is not an easy place to get to. I got there in February by flying from Washington to Denver and then sitting around the Denver airport for hours, while the local commuter airline that flies to the airport nearest Lander tried to get its small planes refueled in 15-below-zero weather. While waiting, I … Read more
Barring an international conflagration or another 9/11, both of which may God forbid, the 2012 election is going to be fought on the question of America’s fiscal future: Will the United States get a grip now, and over the next several decades, on the costs associated with an aging society? Or will we spend-and-borrow … Read more
Strange as it may seem, I’ve been vaguely worried about the beatification on May 1 of a man with whom I was in close conversation for over a decade and to the writing of whose biography I dedicated 15 years of my own life. My worries don’t have to do with allegations of a “rushed” … Read more
Dr. Habib Malik of the Lebanese American University has been a friend for many years. Few men have such an informed and humane view of the sad, even desperate, position of Christians in the Middle East. As a Lebanese Maronite with a Harvard doctorate in intellectual history, what Dr. Malik knows comes from experience as well … Read more
In the fall of 2007, I spent a week in Spain, giving lectures, meeting with Spanish Catholic leaders, and making a hair-raising climb up several hundred scaffolding stairs to the top of Antoni Gaudi’s Basilica of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona — preceded by Stanislaw Cardinal Dziwisz, Pope John Paul II’s longtime secretary, who was … Read more
Several weeks ago, the Vatican announced that it would not grant the necessary approval for Lesley-Anne Knight’s second, four-year term as secretary general of Caritas International, a global network of 165 Catholic agencies working primarily in the Third World on development and health-care issues. Predictably, the Vatican black ball was deplored by some leaders of … Read more
Judging by the impassioned commentary from some Catholic quarters during recent confrontations between unionized public-sector workers and state governments, you’d think we were back in 1919, with the Church defending the rights of wage slaves laboring in sweat shops under draconian working conditions. That would hardly seem to be the circumstances of, say, unionized American … Read more
Something quite remarkable happened recently: William Wakefield Cardinal Baum — emeritus archbishop of Washington, emeritus prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, emeritus major penitentiary of the Catholic Church — passed the late James Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore (who died in 1921) to become the longest-serving American cardinal in history. It’s an astonishing record that … Read more
Russian Federation president Dmitri Medvedev’s recent visit to the Vatican, which included an audience with Pope Benedict XVI, is being trumpeted in some quarters as further evidence of a dramatic breakthrough in relations between the Holy See and Russia, and between the Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church. While I wish that were the … Read more
In The Joys of Yiddish, Leo Rosten defined chutzpa as “presumption-plus-arrogance such as no other word, and no other language, can do justice to” and then offered classic examples of chutzpa in action: “Chutzpa is that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of … Read more