Last month we examined the current state of the humanities in universities as an example of what happens when an institution attempts to “evolve” in order to maintain its place of prestige in the world. Too often, the disciplines of the humane letters have abandoned their own characteristic modes and methods of examining reality and … Read more
When many conservatives hear of “European integration,” they roll their eyes. The term evokes sclerotic, secularist Brussels bureaucracy out of touch with ordinary Europeans that wants to control every detail of nominally sovereign member-states’ lives. Recently, Pope Francis has vowed to speed up the cause for beatification of one of the European project’s founders Alcide … Read more
I would like to weigh in on Ross Douthat’s on-going dialogue with theologians employed at nominally Catholic institutions. Like Douthat, I am not a theologian. However, we don’t have to be theologians in order to be good Catholics or people of good sense. I think us “amateurs” can contribute two very solid points that the … Read more
After the San Bernardino massacre, The Angelus, the Los Angeles archdiocesan newspaper, carried an article calling for “greater solidarity with Islam.” The piece by Fr. Ronald Rolheiser is a particularly egregious example of the kind of nonsense about Islam that passes for wisdom in some ecclesiastical circles. He starts off by observing that “this is … Read more
Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine, There’s always laughter and good red wine. At least I’ve always found it so. Benedicamus Domino! ∼ Hilaire Belloc When my wife and I were first married—oh, about half a lifetime ago—there was no wine for us to drink at our reception. It was not that others had depleted … Read more
The world is not good enough. It could be better. We all agree about that. There are disagreements over how bad it is, and what causes this inadequacy. A popular explanation is that all of the world’s problems are caused by oppression, the process by which the powerful exercise their supremacy over the weak. It … Read more
Almanzo Wilder cannot believe his eyes. “Whose sled is that, Father?” he asks, bewildered. “Is it—it isn’t for me?” Mother laughs and Father twinkles his eyes and asks, “Do you know any other nine-year-old that wants it?” It is Almanzo’s ninth birthday. In his family’s farmhouse in upstate New York, his parents have just sent … Read more
Those religious who governed the West’s seminaries and monasteries before Vatican II stressed—whether specifically as part of their order’s constitution, or on a broader basis—the dangers involved with “particular friendships.” Contrary to what is often supposed, these dangers did not exclusively concern homoerotic attraction, never mind outright homosexual affairs. Nor were such cautions made in … Read more
If every poem has a past, then the strands of my own past are laced with lines of the loveliest lyric, forged a century or more ago by Gerard Manley Hopkins, an obscure Jesuit priest whose sonnet, “God’s Grandeur,” I elatedly discovered while a student at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. His was the opening … Read more
The very goal of the Christian’s life—true worship of God—is a subject too often brushed aside as irrelevant to the question of transmitting the Faith, despite the growing urgency among the faithful to find new ways to catechize. What’s rightly perceived as a catechetical crisis ought to show us the relationship of worship to truth. … Read more
With hopes that I’m not falling into some heresy, I find myself persuaded by mainstream libertarian economists. Their general positions include: economic law of free markets with limited or no government interference; the law of supply and demand; the responsibility of central governments to collect taxes only for those activities the private sector can’t or … Read more
“Why do you think we haven’t had a woman as president yet?” First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton asked her guest over their lunch at the White House. The little woman sitting at table with Mrs. Clinton did not hesitate in her reply. “Because she has probably been aborted,” said Mother Teresa. ¤ ¤ ¤ This … Read more
Experience shows that acquiring a large sum of money can be a problem. But, especially today, it is easy to miss or forget problems associated with money. Unless we have a rare level of virtue, we are prone to the magnetic pull of precious metals. Money has a uniquely powerful hold on our imaginations and desires. … Read more
Under the Islamic dhimmi system, when Christians paid the jizya tax, they were often required to kneel before the local Muslim dignitary as a sign of submission. Sometimes the tax collector would deliver a slap to the face as an added humiliation. This was in accordance with the Koranic injunction that non-Muslims must not only … Read more
Saint or psycho? The Holy Fool is a man or woman perceived as foolish in the eyes of the world but who is, nevertheless, an unnerving presence. Both in the Christian East and West, there is a long tradition of such individuals who witness to a spiritual reality beyond this world. Periodically, they appear on … Read more
In a recent essay in Partisan Magazine, Daniel Brown argues that the decline of the humane disciplines has come about through an envy of the physical sciences and, in particular, the impossible desire to replicate the kind of revolutionary insights that have given those sciences their prestige in the modern age. Brown accounts for this … Read more
Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina doesn’t end with the suicide of Anna. Its final section concludes the story of its other primary character, Constantin Levin. Levin’s situation is very different from Anna’s. He is married to the woman he loves, who has recently given birth to their first child, a healthy son. They live on a farm … Read more
Two of the great propaganda achievements of the radical homosexual movement are the now internalized beliefs that they are everywhere and they are just like us. Many propositions laid the ground work for the change in public opinion from the time homosexuality was openly mocked to today when you can get fired even for poking … Read more
“The synod experience also made us better realize that the true defenders of doctrine are not those who uphold its letter, but its spirit; not ideas but people; not formulas but the free availability of God’s love and forgiveness.” ∼ Pope Francis I do want to love this pope, the sure desire of any Catholic heart. … Read more
“Dhimmitude,” like takfir and sharia, is a word of which Americans were happily ignorant not so long ago. Events, unfortunately, have expanded our Arabic vocabulary. As with other Islamic concepts, the meaning of dhimmitude, even its existence, is contested among Muslims. And misuse is not always merely semantic for those prone to issuing fatwas. No … Read more