“‘Charles,’ said Cordelia, ‘Modern Art is all bosh, isn’t it?’” “‘Great bosh.’” — Brideshead Revisited You needn’t be quite so blithe as Evelyn Waugh’s Charles Ryder to know that visual art has gone far astray in the past 100 years. While the works of individual geniuses still arrest us with their idiosyncratic beauty — … Read more
At least since the lavish dinners of the decadent Roman Republic, rulers and those who aspired to rule have frequently made a point of conspicuous consumption. Now, this isn’t always despicable; we expect those who represent legitimate authority on earth to express the dignity of their office. Even in the vigorous early days of … Read more
Having worked through the Deadly Sins, the opposite neuroses, and the Virtues that stand in the Golden Mean between them, it’s time to help the gentle reader put this knowledge to use. As I warned you, there will be a quiz. Since it’s truth that sets us free, the key to attaining Humility is stark … Read more
In past columns I’ve explored the deadly sin of Vainglory (or Vanity) and its key role in the American Church’s sex-abuse crisis. I’ve looked into the opposing virtue, Humility, and pointed up exemplars like the anonymous Capuchin friars who willed that their skeletons be dismantled to form the decorations for their chapel. Now it’s time … Read more
When somebody says “poetic justice,” what that really means is the kind of justice dished out by poets. In which case, you’d better hope the poet’s a person like Dante or T. S. Eliot, and not some maniac like Marinetti (who wanted to burn Italy’s libraries and museums, then start culture from scratch), or a … Read more
Some readers cringe at the fact that I flesh out the Deadly Sins with examples, instead of sticking to abstractions. Then again, some people winced when Dante published his Inferno, which was full of the names of real people whom he’d known personally, and included in hell the pope who was reigning when it … Read more
When we’re thinking about the Deadly Sins, it helps to use examples. It’s too easy for theological writers to sling around Abstractions with Capital Letters, as if with each stroke of the pen they’re tapping into Plato’s realm of changeless, ineffable Forms. Or at least that they’re writing in German, where all nouns start with … Read more
I’ve often heard people talk about their most beloved aspect of our Faith. When asked, “What’s your favorite thing about being a Catholic?” some well-instructed souls will cite the Eucharist, while others will speak of their devotion to Our Lady. The pointier heads in the room might cite the Church’s rich storehouse of worldly and … Read more
Ten thousand difficulties may not make one doubt, if Newman is right. In that case, what I had last week was a difficulty, but a tricky one. It happened during daily Mass — a habit I can’t manage to acquire, partly because I find the liturgy so moving that it is enormously draining, and … Read more
This week I’d like to thank my dogged readers for reading about my dogs, and all the other rococo digressions I squirted onto the page in the course of considering the Seven Deadly Sins and Opposing Virtues, because this week we’re done. Fittingly, since I began the series with Sloth, I put off Diligence to … Read more
Like most of you, I was edified by the pagan, Viking funeral that marked the passing of that champion of life, Sen. Edward Kennedy. I thought it particularly fitting the way they floated his human remains down the Charles River out to the bay in a burning boat made of the car he’d driven at … Read more
Despite the evidence of my implausible last name — customer-service staff refuse to believe it, force me to repeat it two and three times, and sometimes even argue, “It can’t be spelled like that!” — the provenance of my Catholic faith is Irish American, courtesy of my catechetical mom. Whatever specifically Croatian quirks dad had … Read more
We all know the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector in the Temple (Lk 18:9-14). “But then the tax collector, aware of his own deep humility, looked upon the Pharisee and said: Lord, I thank thee that I am not such as this man, who fasts and prays and gives alms unto the … Read more
This virtue business is a puzzler. If picking up the tab for a raging alcoholic, or keeping one’s gambling-addict grandma in bingo cards, doesn’t add up to Liberality, what does? Isn’t the New Testament full of admonitions like “Give till it hurts,” and “It’s 10 p.m. Do you know where your children are?” It’s … Read more
It’s easy to make fun of twelve-step groups, given their curious jargon and the fact that there are so many different varieties of them filling church basements across the country with cigarette smoke and pamphlets. In case you didn’t know, the movement has gone far beyond offering hope to alcoholics and drug users, expanding to … Read more
I’m finishing up a book on the Seven Deadly Sins and their “contrary virtues” — finishing writing one, that is. I’d much rather do that than read one, just as I’d rather talk than listen. (I find this argument reassures my freshmen rhetoric students.) Tracing the spectrum of virtue to vice requires a delicate … Read more
The University of Chicago has just announced that its students are not, in fact, humans, but magicians trapped inside of monkeys. The Windy City dons are not alone in believing this about the bright young things who crowd its halls at the estimated cost of $52,298 per year. Many other equally prestigious and pricey schools … Read more
Last week something very strange happened. I made a comment that stopped my girlfriend from talking. Much of the time, I can’t get a word in edgewise — not that I mind, since she’s wry, whip-smart, and deliriously Southern. But this time, she got really quiet and sounded for once impressed. She said, in a … Read more
The pope’s new encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (CV), is a “big” document, and I won’t pretend to dispose of it with a brief commentary. Like its ancestor, the epochal Rerum Novarum, it will work its way through the mills of hundreds of thinkers for decades to come — provoking responses by writers of every political … Read more
This week I’d planned to address the complex, nuanced topic of humility — the virtue that consists in facing honestly your own good habits and vices. Key to it, of course, as C. S. Lewis explained unforgettably through Screwtape, is to pay yourself attention without getting overly interested in the subject. We are each our … Read more