Two woodsmen emerge from the thick overgrowth of wood, and wend their way to the edge of a pristine, shimmering lake. The beautiful Glimmerglass, as this water is known, resplendent in its virgin serenity, belies the savage danger that awaits these visitors to her shores. As Natty Bumppo and his companion, Henry March, converse at … Read more
October is the month of the Most Holy Rosary, a devotion associated in modern times with the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima in 1917, during the First World War. Mary asked for prayer and penance, which she always requests in these private revelations that echo the public revelation in the Gospel: “Repent, … Read more
It would be both dishonest and absurdly ironic (since my October 17 article in Crisis was about intellectual integrity) if I were to fail to point out and correct a rather serious oversight that it contained. I stated that the Church teaches that to vote for a candidate who supports abortion is to be complicit … Read more
One thing that defenders of the sexual revolution will not understand is that, although the act of intercourse is private (or better be), everything else about sex is public. I don’t simply mean that people will know that John and Mary are in a “relationship,” horrid denatured word, or that sexual intercourse results in those … Read more
Where to begin? Well, there are hardly any right angles in this building. Broken forms, discontinuities, and protrusions in its geometry both inside and outside characterize the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Such imbalance and departure from mathematical harmony is usually explained away by labeling it a “postmodern-deconstructivist” building, as if style were … Read more
There are commentators on the sports channels whose numbing dialogues would never be confused with the Algonquin Round Table. These are the so-called Monday Morning Quarterbacks. Some historians quarterback that way. Pope Pius XII, hailed in his lifetime as a protector of persecuted people, has suffered in reputation from lax minds who never exercised themselves … Read more
Following is the homily given October 14 by Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore and the chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington on the occasion of the Marian Pilgrimage for Life and Liberty. On this beautiful autumn Sunday in … Read more
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480-524), best known for his Consolation of Philosophy, is one of the most fascinating and puzzling figures from Late Antiquity. He was born in that time of transition in Western Europe that brought an end to the Roman Empire and saw the rise of the barbarian successor states, which have ruled … Read more
The past four years have witnessed a battle between different generations of Catholics in public life—Generation X Catholics have taken a very different path from Baby Boomer Catholics and those born before the boomers. Generation X Catholics have emerged prominently in the Republican Party. Many who were mentioned this year on Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential short … Read more
Remember the pill scene from the movie Matrix? Neo is offered a choice between a red and a blue pill. The red pill promises only the truth. The blue pill offers the blissful ignorance to the fact that he is a human battery, one of millions that power futuristic machines. What’s really incredible about the … Read more
Winston Churchill deserves the credit for replacing the word “lies” with the “fabrication of terminological inexactitudes.” No one wants to be accused of telling a lie. Churchill’s ingenious phrase may mean the same thing as a lie, but it has considerably less sting. By the time the accused figures out what these words mean, the … Read more
I continue to read more and more from Catholics upset with Joe Biden’s defense of the Obama Administration’s HHS mandate in the vice-presidential debate. I got news for you. It’s worse than you think. During the debate, Biden’s opponent Paul Ryan challenged the HHS mandate: “Look at what they’re doing through Obamacare with respect to … Read more
Before the basilica of St. Paul outside the Walls stands the imposing marble figure of Paul, his fiery eyes looking down upon the pilgrim and his hand firmly gripping the sword that brought about his death and symbolizes the Word he preached. As the visitor’s eyes look past the towering effigy towards the façade of … Read more
The most interesting moment of the second 2012 presidential debate came in the final minutes, when Barry Green, the last of the 82 supposedly undecided voters handpicked by the Gallup Poll, asked Governor Mitt Romney to describe the biggest misperception that the American people have about him as a person and a candidate. Predictably, he … Read more
Lord Peter Wimsey, that aristocratic and debonair sleuth, remarked that “The first thing a principle does is to get someone killed.” He said so in the middle of Dorothy Sayer’s delightful book Gaudy Night, which, aside from being an entertaining mystery story is a book about intellectual integrity. What he meant was this: the moment … Read more
Election 2012 is upon us. Many are calling it the most important election in their lives. The candidates and supporters have routinely emphasized that the Presidential candidates, their platforms, and their voting records are complete opposites. The two main parties in the United States have extremely different visions on nearly every issue of importance. And … Read more
A sentence in the French newspaper Le Monde recently caught my eye: Il y aura toujours des talibans de l’austérité, there will always be the Talibans of austerity. It was uttered by the economist Jean Pisani-Ferry in an interview in the newspaper about the crisis in the Euro zone, and it made me think at … Read more
Democrats for Life in America (DFLA) was founded in 1999 on the premise that approximately one-third of Democrats are pro-life; and it has been valiantly championing the pro-life cause in congressional and presidential elections since that time. The pro-life Democrats include many who are against unrestricted elective abortions, and/or who favor exceptions for rape, incest, … Read more
By the time I was received into the Catholic Church 15 years ago I had already read a number of stories of conversions to the faith—Newman’s Apologia, Avery Dulles’ A Testimonial to Grace, Scott Hahn’s Rome Sweet Home, and many others in essay or book form. I still love reading conversion stories, not just from … Read more
In October 1646, the French crown placed a failing University of Paris college, the Collège du Plessis, under the administration of the illustrious Collège de la Sorbonne, newly enriched by Cardinal Richelieu. The old Plessis, facing financial difficulties and near total collapse, needed complete reorganization and new leadership if it were to survive. Appointed principal … Read more