The beginning of the Gospel is in the angel’s words to the shepherds: “I bring you good news of a great joy,” the good news of the birth of a Savior. (Luke 2:10) What news could be better? When he first preached in the synagogue after the forty days in the desert, he himself explained … Read more
The great error of most economic thinking these days is not that it is too keenly focused on the economy, but that it has all but forgotten it. A good friend of mine, a wise theologian, has encouraged his students to distinguish between what Aristotle calls chrematistics, the craft of amassing wealth, which Aristotle viewed … Read more
The day may come when Catholics can support neither of the main American political parties or their candidates. Some think it’s already arrived. Alasdair MacIntyre, the Notre Dame philosopher, argued along those lines a few years ago, explaining why he couldn’t vote for either a Democrat or a Republican. I don’t know what Professor MacIntyre … Read more
In these dark days in which the power of secular fundamentalism appears to be on the rise and in which religious freedom seems to be imperiled, it is easy for Christians to become despondent. The clouds of radical relativism seem to obscure the light of objective truth and it can be difficult to discern any … Read more
A couple of months ago I wrote that the Church generally supports and cooperates with political authorities. She interprets their efforts charitably, supports whatever can be justified, and, when some particular measure is undeniably bad, tries to show what would be better. All that’s obvious good sense when Christian or natural law principles are generally … Read more
The student congress at Harvard, America’s most prestigious “institution of higher learning,” as the euphemism goes, has voted to provide funds to a campus group promoting sadomasochistic sex. Members of the Love and Fidelity Network, a group promoting chastity before marriage and faithfulness within, voice their opposition, and are widely denounced and ridiculed. A female … Read more
I recently had a brief conversation with a former colleague of mine who is Catholic, and who wanted to inquire about certain aspects of the faith that she was struggling with. She mentioned to me that, while she goes to Mass on Sundays and “has faith,” she nevertheless expressed a desire that there was more … Read more
What do matchmakers know that eludes the common man? What does the common man know that escapes the matchmakers? Austen’s novel shows that true romance originates from equality of social background and education, compatibility of temperaments, similarity of moral ideals and manners, natural attraction based on reason and feeling, and mutual admiration. Matchmaking ignores these … Read more
It is ironic that the scintillating Graeco-Syrian Saint Luke was martyred, according to tradition in Boeotia, a humid and swampy part of central Greece whose people were said to be not interested in philosophy or much of anything beyond their uneventful daily lives. That may have been the propaganda of the superior Athenians, who caricatured … Read more
The secular media have an unending interest in things Catholic. A recent sampling includes a theology teacher allegedly dismissed for favoring the ordination of women to the priesthood, an announced lesbian (and, as it turned out, a Buddhist) refused Communion at her mother’s funeral, a music teacher dismissed from the Catholic schools because he planned … Read more
You don’t have to go out of your way today to be confronted with the subject of contraception. In November, 2012, the United Nations Population Fund issued its annual report entitled “By Choice, Not by Chance,” describing contraception as a global “right” for women, and calling for the removal of all social and financial obstacles … Read more
In September 2010, Emile Perreau-Saussine, age 37, was rushed to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, UK, with chest pains. The junior physician on staff misdiagnosed his condition and thus failed to prevent his death hours later of a massive heart attack. This tragic incident is much more than a sad commentary on the quality of socialized … Read more
The late British author, Alice Thomas Ellis, is a bracing if improbable combination of Flannery O’Connor and Evelyn Waugh. Intimidated by nothing, satirically amused by most things, and weary of everything that her profound Catholic sensibilities found facile and false, Ellis wrote novels and essays that, sadly, too few now read. How fitting, then, that … Read more
Since the presidential election, I haven’t been watching the American news channels much, I haven’t had the heart. The US appears to be about to go over something they are calling the fiscal cliff because of Obama’s triumphalistic behavior: he won, so he’s not compromising with congressional Republicans who want much-needed public spending cuts, and … Read more
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