“I don’t think Ron Paul represents the mainstream,” says Mitt Romney. Newt Gingrich, another of the Texas congressman’s opponents in the contest for the Republican presidential nomination, uses stronger terms, declaring, “Ron Paul’s views are totally outside the mainstream of virtually every decent American.” As the results in Iowa suggest, the “mainstream” to which … Read more
The Occupy Wall Street movement has hit several huge roadblocks. First it was the cold temperatures that sent many home. Next was the long-overdue decision to evacuate them out of public parks by liberal Democrat mayors. But another huge roadblock that’s emerging: their enormous hypocrisy on wealth. The occupiers have pushed the ludicrous slogan … Read more
It is not often that I go to moving picture palaces, and when I do I am saddened that the new kind of “multiplex” cinemas are not palaces at all. I may be indulging nostalgia (defined as “history after a few drinks”), but theatres do seem to have shrunk to fit the quality of most … Read more
At this time of the year, walking from my apartment to the University, shop-windows would usually be all decked in Christmas finery. But instead, what I find are closing-down sales, “for rent” signs and locales completely boarded up. It has been like this for the past couple of years that it feels like the new … Read more
Even though he is a columnist for The Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer often makes shrewd observations about American politics. On Fox News the night before the Iowa caucuses, however, Krauthammer indulged in a false appeal to common knowledge — before casually dismissing Rick Santorum as a nonviable presidential candidate Bill O’Reilly asked: Who is … Read more
What human motivation gets the most wonderful things done? It’s really a silly question, because the answer is so simple. It turns out that it’s human greed that gets the most wonderful things done. When I say greed, I am not talking about fraud, theft, dishonesty, lobbying for special privileges from government or other … Read more
Friday’s lead stories in The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal dealt with what both viewed as a national affront and outrage. Egyptian soldiers, said the Post, “stormed the offices” of three U.S. “democracy-building organizations … in a dramatic escalation of a crackdown by the military-led government that could imperil its relations with … Read more
Just before sneaking off to Hawaii, where he barred news photos on the golf course, President Obama overturned a longstanding U.S. policy that prohibited Internet gambling. In yet another presidential shenanigan that bypasses U.S. law, Obama used the device of a secret Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel opinion, dated in September and quietly … Read more
Egypt today is the site of a persecution of the Church on a scale unseen in Western Europe since the darkest days of the French Revolution; the Coptic Church is fighting for its life under vicious and escalating attacks from Muslims. A Muslim Brotherhood government is coming to power that promises to be more hostile. … Read more
Last February, Bernard Lewis, the famous historian of the Middle East, warned that if elections were held early after the Arab spring, “It can only lead to one direction, as it did in [Weimar] Germany, for example,” an allusion to Hitler’s 1933 takeover after gaining a plurality in elections. In this case, Lewis meant not … Read more
The first round of Egyptian parliamentary elections has taken place, and the winners were two Islamist parties. The Islamists themselves are split between more extreme and more moderate factions, but it is clear that the secularists who dominated the demonstrations and who were the focus of the Arab Spring narrative made a poor showing. Of the three … Read more
In one of the scriptural passages most often quoted by Blessed Pope John Paul II during the course of his historic pontificate, a “rich young man” asks the Lord what I consider to be the only question really worth asking once one reaches the age of reason and understands the reality of death: “What must … Read more
Election year has finally arrived, well after the beginning of a turbulent and unpredictable elections season, and voting begins on Tuesday in the Iowa Republicans caucuses. The few days of post-Christmas polling have shown the numbers oscillating and opinion changing in ways it hadn’t been earlier in the campaign. Pre-Christmas, Barack Obama’s job rating … Read more
The following interview with Rev. John A. Hardon, S.J., by Anita Crane, appeared in the Dec. 1997 edition of Crisis Magazine. Father Hardon died on Dec. 30, 2000, and the cause for his canonization has already been introduced. John Hardon, S.J., has fought the good fight for some time. He has published more than … Read more
The Church was also in need of change, but only to the extent that she needed to look again at how she could most effectively change the world. We have allowed a missionary council to be domesticated. The greatest failure of the post-Vatican II Church is the failure to call forth and to form a … Read more
Have you heard any good news lately? Bad news abounds. It’s been another tough year. Economic woes continue. Greece and Italy are on the verge of bankruptcy. Unemployment is still high in the United States (around 8.6 percent), and the stock market has taken a beating. With approximately $108 billion in insured catastrophic losses, 2011 … Read more
The Grand Inquisitor (paperback) Text by John Zmirak, art by Carla Millar, Crossroad, $16.73. At first glance, it seems designed specifically to freak out everyone in its numerous potential overlapping markets–an intricately Gothic comic book, its dialogue written in elaborate blank verse, its plot inspired by and title borrowed from Dostoevsky’s heavy-going ‘Grand Inquisitor,’ … Read more
I will not presume to present you with the best classical recordings of 2011, but will inflict upon you my favorites – those CDs that have found themselves most often on my player for repeat auditions simply because of the generally enjoyable nature of the music and performance. I have so many discs to recommend … Read more
For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places. (Eph., 6-12) And yet in spite of this universal world which we see, there is another world, quite as farspreading, quite as close … Read more
Profanity and pop music go hand in hand these days. The pop star Rihanna recently appeared on the British version of Simon Cowell’s singing competition The X Factor dressed in a demure plaid jumper with a prim white collar. It seemed like a bow to younger viewers (and their parents). But a glance at … Read more