As the presidential campaign came to a close, religious questions sneaked surreptitiously into the national debate. The Democrats had an easy target: Governor Romney’s unusual religious affiliation, though since few Democrats know anything about any religion, particularly Christianity, they found it difficult to distinguish Mormonism from other not quite so strange semi-Christian sects. Watching national … Read more
It is commonly asserted, especially among atheists, that belief in an afterlife cools one’s enthusiasms for this life on earth. This God-centered or theocentric view allegedly prevents human beings from truly being themselves and living up to their full potential. As a consequence, they fail to appreciate fully the richness and rewards of this world. … Read more
Pope Benedict writes in Spe salvi, “The true measure of humanity is essentially determined in relationship to suffering and to the sufferer.” These words recently took on new meaning for me as I encountered the story of Edwarda O’Bara, who passed away at the age of 59 in late November. In January 1970 Edwarda slipped … Read more
In Quod Apostolici Muneris (1878), Pope Leo XIII deplores those who “under the motley and all but barbarous terms and titles of Socialists, Communists, and Nihilists, are spread abroad throughout the world,” striving in alliance for “the purpose long resolved upon, of uprooting the foundations of civil society at large.” It may sound odd to … Read more
A highly-decorated four star general with a terminal degree from a major university joins the club, that ignoble band of brothers who gave in to their lusts. To be sure, his letter of resignation hit the right notes, admitting he “showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair.” Oh, would that the majority … Read more
When the Supreme Court struck down all state laws restricting abortion in Roe v. Wade, the justices were undoing the work of a group of courageous physicians who had helped enact the laws a century earlier. The leading force in this movement was Dr. Horatio Robinson Storer, an energetic young obstetrician from Boston. Until the … Read more
If you read the dissident or otherwise discontented Catholic blogs and websites you will know those folks are steamed about practically everything. A year ago they were beside themselves at the prospects and then the implementation of a long-needed new translation of the Missal. The English translation was generally considered not only weak but out … Read more
A common trope in social policy debates is to claim that the public’s changing opinion on the policy at stake, rather than the policy’s moral or substantive justifications, merits changing the platform of one’s preferred political party. This notion seems recently to have taken root on the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, and … Read more
The star that Jean-Paul Sartre once was, doyen of his day’s incompletely educated intellectuals, has not quietly faded the way splashy names often do in the generation after they die. His star has astonishingly imploded. Some echoes remain, for he was not devoid of a way with words, nor was he without rays of light … Read more
Last year, Christopher Kaczor, professor of philosophy at Loyola Marymount University, edited a magnificent book entitled O Rare Ralph McInerny: Stories and Reflections on a Legendary Notre Dame Professor. The book is a collection of essays written by former friends, colleagues, acquaintances, strangers, and novel-readers that knew the remarkable and beloved professor at Our Lady’s … Read more
Ignorance and Want: “…no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade… has monsters half so horrible and dread.” Leave it to Mr. Dickens to capture the demons of fallen nature and fallen society without taming them. This is a single instance in a multitude why A Christmas Carol is no Hallmark affair to be … Read more
In a recent interview about her latest book, Phyllis Schlafly said that there will be no solution to the problem of expansive out-of-control government without a restoration of the family. She is entirely correct, but I would go a step further: While a lot of cultural forces have severely damaged the family, it will not … Read more
The Sixties wanted Paradise Now: a paradise that ignores the distant and difficult in favor of the immediate and effortless. We wouldn’t transcend life’s conflicts and difficulties by striving after a higher unity, we’d abolish them by denying them recognition. Each would do his thing and follow his bliss, and all would be well. As … Read more
Every Sunday in Christ the King Chapel at Christendom College in Front Royal, Virginia, the mass is celebrated with all the pomp and ceremony that the traditions of the Catholic Church and the humble means of that small college allow—glittering vestments, billowing incense, a liberal helping of Latin, and numerous grave-faced altar servers. And music. … Read more
In Civics 101, we learn about the venerable mainstay of democratic republics—the separation of government into Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches. Properly employed, this separation should result in a beneficial “balance of power,” preventing usurpation of power by any particular branch. Working as expected, the legislature makes the laws, the executive enforces them, and the … Read more
In my first installment, I looked at Pope Leo XIII’s early encyclical Inscrutabili (1878), on the evils affecting modern society, wherein the Pope decried the state’s displacement of the Church’s institutions established for charitable work and the education of youth. I kept in reserve Leo’s severe condemnation of new laws regarding marriage. The issue is … Read more
This past year America has seen a trumped up “War on Women” that claimed women’s freedom depends on “reproductive rights.” At the height of the Presidential election, the Obama camp courted the female vote with an exhortation to “vote like your lady parts depend on it” (in an e-card on the Obama campaign Tumbler that … Read more
Speaking of his medieval ancestors and ours, d’Alembert once said that “Poetry for them was reduced to a puerile mechanism.” James Madison, echoing him, judged the result of fifteen centuries of Christian civilization to be little more than “pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and … Read more
Would you ever want to be buried alive? It’s a question Tom Stoppard raises in his absurdist drama, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. In the play, the titular Rosencrantz considers this riddle when he contemplates the experience of being a corpse in a coffin. Even taking into account the fact that you’re dead, it isn’t … Read more
In an ideal Catholic world, if a Catholic theologian promoted a woman’s right to choose abortion and encouraged access to same-sex marriage, while also comparing the sacrifice of the Mass to an act of homosexual intercourse, the work of that theologian would be marginalized. But, in the upside-down world of Catholic higher education in 2012, … Read more