One of the many memorable scenes in David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago features Zhivago’s family fleeing the ugliness and brutality of Moscow after the Bolshevik Revolution for the tranquility of the family’s country estate in Varykino. Upon reaching the estate after an arduous journey, Zhivago’s father-in-law, Alexander Gromeko, finds the main house boarded up, with a … Read more
In his fantastical account of “The Unthinkable Theory of Professor Green,” G.K. Chesterton invites us to imagine an astronomer regaling his audience in great and gorgeous detail about a strange new planet he’s just discovered. Only gradually do we realize that this utterly amazing place is in fact our very own world, replete with wonders … Read more
Being quoted by the press often leads to an out-of-body experience. This happened to me this weekend when an article posted by the Religion News Service was sent out through the wire and landed at the Washington Post, Huffington Post, National Catholic Reporter, and many other outlets. Every time I would read a new posting … Read more
Plutarch, the first-century Greek moralist who outlined four stages of a civilization, said that a society that has become libertine is in its next-to-last stage before its final descent into tyranny. When tyranny is mentioned, most people, if they are old enough to remember, think of Mussolini and his secret police or Hitler and his … Read more
On the night of August 11, 1834, the Charlestown Convent lay in ruins, destroyed by a furious anti-Catholic mob. Completed only six years earlier, the convent had been the showpiece of the Catholic Church in America. Situated on 22 acres overlooking Boston, the convent property included a school building, a chaplain’s house, gardens and orchards. … Read more
Set outside of Tolkien’s well-traversed Middle-earth, “Farmer Giles of Ham” is easily missed by the casual fan of “hobbitses.” It’s a fairy tale from a fictional medieval land known as the Little Kingdom, but it offers fertile soil for thinking about many of the social issues we are facing in the contemporary American political scene. … Read more
Standing in front of a famous 1964 photo of Father Theodore Hesburgh locking arms with the Rev. Martin Luther King, Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, honored Father Hesburgh at a party on Capitol Hill celebrating the retired president of the University of Notre Dame’s 96th birthday in late May. During her celebratory remarks, Pelosi … Read more
Editor’s note: The following letter by Eagle Forum president, Phyllis Schlafly, was mailed this month to key members of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in the United States concerning the implementation of the Common Core education standards in public and private schools, including Catholic schools. It is reprinted here with permission of the author. Your Excellency, … Read more
In the middle of our cultural crisis, issues such as politics, economics, and education may come immediately to mind. Though these issues are vital to our culture, the crisis stems in part from something even more fundamental. We’ve lost touch with the most basic aspects of culture. An important answer to our crisis can be … Read more
Edith Stein was an unlikely saint. A former Jewish-atheist bluestocking who died for the Faith as a Carmelite nun in the gas chamber at Auschwitz, Stein was impelled by a quenchless thirst for truth. God in His Mercy placed in her life friends who were themselves, in one way or another, “hidden with Christ in … Read more
In his dissent in United States v. Windsor, the Supreme Court decision invalidating the federal definition of marriage as natural marriage, Justice Scalia rightly identified as particularly outrageous the Court’s assertion that the purpose of the definition was a “‘bare … desire to harm’ couples in same-sex marriages.” The assertion is ignorant and bigoted to … Read more
If ever you find yourself about to be eaten by an alligator, or sat upon by a hippopotamus, it is probably not a good idea to appeal to the better angels of their nature in hopes of securing your release. In the first place, there are no better angels lurking about the animal world, nature … Read more
I know, I know, it’s only the beginning of August, and the very last thing on a college student’s mind is the upcoming semester. Unless they’re rising freshmen, in which case the upcoming semester is very much on their mind, but mainly about leaving home and meeting their new roommate, not necessarily the purpose and … Read more
Perhaps it is because I am a European living in Europe and, thereby, not so entangled in the HHS mandate issue (and have less to lose) that I cannot understand the thinking that surrounds the response of some Catholics in the US. From where I stand, across The Pond, compliance with the HHS mandate is, … Read more
Very few popes give off-the-cuff interviews to reporters to begin with, and even less joke and have fun with the reporters. So, when Pope Francis did just that as he returned from World Youth Day, it was a stunner. It wasn’t so much that he said he “does not judge gays”—after all, the meaning itself … Read more
I’ve always hesitated to comment on the state of our military culture. I’ve never served and, for a variety of reasons, seriously doubt I ever will be (or ever would have been) called upon to enter combat. But over the years I’ve come to know a number of military families reasonably well, and to respect … Read more
The human journey often leads travelers astray who are misled by darkness of the night or by darkness of the intellect. Many who travel lose their way because they wander far from the sources of light, lose themselves in a labyrinth of passages and doors, or take a false turn. In The Princess and the … Read more
A feature film now in theaters tells the story of children devastated by divorce and the story of middle-aged adolescents living almost exclusively for themselves. The Way Way Back is the story of teen-age Duncan, who spends part of a summer at a beach house with his mother Pam, her boyfriend Trent and her boyfriend’s … Read more
Editor’s note: This interview of Mary Eberstadt, conducted by Gerald J. Russello, was first published July 21, 2013 in The University Bookman under the title “Faith and Family: A Two Way Street” and is reprinted with permission. Eberstadt is a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington D.C. Q: Thanks for … Read more
The media-manufactured brouhaha over Pope Francis’s impromptu remarks on homosexuality has finally begun to die down, and there must be few, if any, Catholics who still think that the Holy Father’s words represented a departure from 2,000 years of Christian teaching on the immorality of homosexual activity (not counting those, of course, who have let … Read more