I am a long-time reader and admirer of the work of Wendell Berry. On April 23, I was privileged to be among those in attendance at the Kennedy Center to hear his 2012 Jefferson Lecture. With Berry nearing the end of his career, I had not expected to hear anything particularly new from him that … Read more
By now, almost everybody realizes that President Obama’s “stimulus” billions to so-called “green energy” projects were a textbook example of why crony capitalism and central planning don’t work. Over a dozen taxpayer-backed companies have already failed. Think Solyndra. And incredibly, according to several studies, the worst may be yet to come. After spending – or … Read more
As spring bloomed, the president addressed the nation on energy. The president told us, “Without our planning for the future, it will get worse … The oil and natural gas that we rely on for 75 percent of our energy is simply running out.” Unless profound changes are made in the next decade, the president … Read more
Some of the most interesting debates on family policies are taking place in the European countries of the former Soviet bloc. In 2008, Lithuania passed legislation to define “family” as the married union of a man and a woman together with their children, adopted or biological. The point was key in terms of who gets … Read more
“For humans to have a responsible relationship to the world, they must imagine their place in it. To have a place, to live and belong in a place, to live from a place without destroying it, we must imagine it.” —Wendell Berry, “It All Turns on Affection,” The 2012 Jefferson Lecture Wendell Berry is a … Read more
King Charles II said that a gentleman is one who puts those around him at ease. Even on his deathbed he apologized to the courtiers in attendance: “I am sorry, gentlemen, for being such a time a-dying.” The Society of Friends was a curiosity to him, especially because one of his admirals to whom he owed … Read more
One of the disappointments of the post-Vatican II period has been the glacial pace of the growth in Catholic biblical literacy the Council hoped to inspire. Why the slow-down? Several reasons suggest themselves. The hegemony of the historical-critical method of biblical study has taught two generations of Catholics that the Bible is too complicated for … Read more
There seem to be two types of people in the world; those who think Edward Munch’s picture, The Scream, is an inspired and profound work of art, and those who can’t see what all the fuss is about. The anonymous buyer who paid nearly US$120 million for the pastel on board version (one of four … Read more
We all know the account in Luke about the boy Jesus, who when he was twelve years old accompanied his parents to Jerusalem for the Passover, as was their custom. But this time he stayed behind in the city after the feast was over, and they, believing that he was somewhere in their caravan of … Read more
With Mitt Romney the presumptive Republican nominee for President it is important to know something about his religion. As a practicing Mormon─ or the Church’s preferred name, “Church of Latter Day Saints” (LDS), Romney’s faith has shaped who he is and how he will approach the nation’s problems. From a traditional Christian perspective Mormonism is … Read more
Another mainstream newspaper from the UK, this time the Telegraph, has put the problem of an ageing, declining population into the spotlight. A couple of weeks ago the New York Times and the Guardian did the same thing, so hopefully we will see more and more of this type of story in the MSM. This is good … Read more
News reports on the trial of Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian who murdered 77 people on the island of Utøya, near Oslo, last year, are being filed from a different moral universe. In The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells imagined that Martian “intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic” were scrutinising and studying earthlings “as … Read more
It has long been fashionable to disparage the notion that one can derive historical insight from medieval poems; an exception to this tendency can be found in the Castilian martial epic Poema del mio Cid, which displays a surprising fidelity to the documented facts of its hero’s life. Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, known to history … Read more
This article appears courtesy of Law and Liberty Those who have learned about the Catholic position on church and state only from the study of European history or from Enlightenment commentaries upon it may surprised to read—and wary to accept—the assertion that “American Catholics have been advocates for religious liberty” from the earliest days of … Read more
Rick Santorum was on to something when he infamously called President Obama a “snob” for wanting everyone to go to college. Of course, that was only the sound bite version of what he said. Santorum fleshed out his point like so: “There are good decent men and women who go out and work hard every … Read more
December 1941 is usually remembered by Americans as that fateful month when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, thus thrusting the United States into World War II. However, consider an alternate scenario: Adolf Hitler appears triumphantly before the Reichstag announcing the destruction of the Soviet Union, following the German capture of Moscow and the “cowardly escape of … Read more
In 1971, a group of distinguished individuals — artists, writers, musicians, intellectuals — sent an appeal to Pope Paul VI requesting that he preserve the classical Roman Rite of the Mass. This group, composed of Catholics and non-Catholics alike, had as their aim not the maintenance of a particular theological mode of worship so much … Read more
On April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee met General Ulysses S. Grant at the McLean House in Appomattox, Virginia, for the purpose of surrendering the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee had asked for the meeting and had prepared by putting on his finest uniform: a new, long dress coat with a high collar buttoned … Read more
To hear the mainstream media tell it, the Vatican has viciously attacked poor, unsuspecting old nuns. Carol Marin’s piece in the Chicago Sun-Times was headlined: “Vatican waging a war on nuns”. Maureen Dowd, in her Sunday column in the New York Times asked, rhetorically, “Who thinks it’s cool to bully nuns?” We Catholics might reasonably … Read more
The 2012 presidential election is shaping up to be one of the most significant elections in American history. The outcome of major political issues such as Obamacare, carbon regulations, and our looming fiscal calamity hang in the balance. In a larger sense, however, this year’s election sits in the shadow of a presidential election that … Read more