Michel Houellebecq is the enfant terrible of contemporary French literature, a modern and best-selling Voltaire or Sartre who writes provocative novels of ideas that both exploit and skewer liberal debauchery and nausea. Michel Houellebecq’s recently translated Submission, which imagines that Islamists come to power during the French presidential election of 2022, has received a lot … Read more
A British newspaper recently ran an article asking if the cult of James Bond is a new religion. It came to the conclusion that it is. I wasn’t surprised at the question posed. In fact, I was relieved that, at last, it was being asked. Only this year, that cult has grown still greater with … Read more
I seem to remember reading somewhere that if you were to stretch along a continuum all the notes Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ever produced, at least a billion miles would be needed to cover the distance. Whoever wrote that had no doubt been a keen and appreciative student of Mozart’s music, but clearly knew nothing about … Read more
On Friday, January 1, the secular world will observe “New Year’s Day.” The Catholic world will not, for two reasons. One is that we have a genuine religious feast day to observe, in celebration of Mary, the Mother of God. The second is that Catholics don’t find much use in celebrating the chronological movement from … Read more
When I was a junior in college and looking for a summer job to defray the next year’s tuition, I answered an ambiguous ad in a newspaper and found myself selling high-quality pots and pans, china, and cutlery to unmarried working girls. It actually was a good job for a good company. I ended up … Read more
The modernist French literary figure Charles Baudelaire coined the maxim that “the devil’s best trick is to persuade you that he does not exist.” I respectfully disagree. The aphorism appears in a short story entitled “The Generous Gambler,” told in the first person, in which the storyteller reflects upon a pleasant evening he spent with … Read more
I find that there really are human beings who think fairy tales bad for children. I do not speak of the man in the green tie, for him I can never count truly human. But a lady has written me an earnest letter saying that fairy tales ought not to be taught to children even … Read more
“And the angels said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” (Luke ii. 10, 11.) There are two principal lessons which we are … Read more
It seems to me that we take “hope” for granted. Of course, as good Catholics we know that we are not to presume the mercy of God, or his blessings. So we might protest that we do no such thing; we know that God is in no way obliged to give us anything, that everything—including … Read more
Our celebration of the great feast days should instantiate in our lives the realities they communicate. For Christmas, the Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord, our actions, such as gift giving, caroling, the symbols of green life in winter, should make present the gift of the new life of Christ coming into the world. … Read more
In the wake of numerous Islamist terrorist attacks, a reaction against religion is now discernible in many quarters of society. After 9/11, the sales of books by prominent atheists such as Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens skyrocketed. The gradual slide into secularism that had been underway for decades prior to 9/11 accelerated after that event. … Read more
In one of my favorite Flannery O’Connor stories, Revelation, Mrs. Turpin—a very large, very cheerful, and heartily judgmental soul—amuses herself by mentally sorting people into their respective categories. She places all the people she looks down upon beneath herself and her husband, and only those who have more of what she and her husband have … Read more
The years-long assault on religious freedom continues in the United States, as Catholic charities, colleges, and other institutions are forced to comply with—or fight legal battles against—mandates concerning adoptions and employment matters related to same-sex couples, abortion and contraceptive health care coverage, and other items on the growing list of issues on which Church teaching … Read more
According to a Nielsen survey conducted a few years ago, the 5th and 7th biggest beer-drinking holidays in America are Christmas and Easter respectively. That year, Americans consumed 59,393,752 cases of beer at Christmas and 53,458,630 cases on Easter. I find this strange because Christmas and Easter are the two seminal feasts on the Christian calendar, yet … Read more
In 1994, the Congregation for Divine Worship issued a letter officially specifying that it is licit for females to serve the altar in the role that has traditionally been known as “altar boy.” Bishops were not bound to permit the practice, and a 2001 follow-up specified that pastors may also choose to reserve altar service … Read more
Charles Dickens’s 1843 Christmas Carol was the beginning of a series of annual “Christmas books” that were very popular gifts in the Victorian era. But while many today treat A Christmas Carol as a child’s holiday story, it is anything but … and it makes many Catholic points. Some might disagree. Jesus is only obliquely mentioned … Read more
It is telling when the deficiencies of the adult world are told in the pages of children’s books. An instance of this has been immortalized in Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel’s cherished story, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The tale of the Grinch is beloved, and for good reason, too. It is a wicked, wacky little … Read more
Higher education in the United States is beset with a variety of crises, from skyrocketing tuition rates to the attendant ballooning student loan debt. Much has been written in the last several years, in particular, about the dire situation in which the humanities find themselves in the universities, as student enrollment in majors such as … Read more
People who reject secular progressivism, especially in its more highly developed forms, are often puzzled by its proponents. Do they really believe what they say they believe, for example, that diversity is always strength, or traditional religion and morality are dangerous and irrational bigotries, or there are no significant differences between men and women? Some … Read more
For much of my academic life, I considered the terms, “values,” “rights,” and “social justice,” to have equivocal meanings. When these terms were used without clarification, they disrupted any fair social order. Each of the phrases had two or more meanings that usually meant the direct opposite of each other. Conversations and legislation in which … Read more