With his popularity ratings plummeting and public resistance to his health-care reform proposals increasing, President Barack Obama spoke to Congress and a national television audience for 48 minutes last night. Though touted as his “health-care speech,” the more important subtext was the future of Obama’s presidency itself. He has let it be known that his … Read more
Recently my family and I watched The Sound of Music for perhaps the twelfth time — probably the last great musical that Hollywood ever produced. It made me wonder if I could list the reasons why such a movie could not now be made. These reasons I offer below; but it seems to me that … Read more
This week I’d like to thank my dogged readers for reading about my dogs, and all the other rococo digressions I squirted onto the page in the course of considering the Seven Deadly Sins and Opposing Virtues, because this week we’re done. Fittingly, since I began the series with Sloth, I put off Diligence to … Read more
In the late 1970s, a group of Episcopal clergymen with typical American chutzpah wrote to Pope Paul VI. They said they wanted to become Catholics, and wished for their priestly ministry to be fulfilled by being ordained as Catholic priests. The only problem was that they had wives and children. Paul VI received their … Read more
Roughly a century ago, a modernist scholar complained that Jesus came to proclaim the kingdom of God, but instead all we got was a lousy Church. He’s probably not the only person to have felt a bit disappointed, nor the only one to form the conviction that the Church is a tragic letdown, a mistake, … Read more
In his Ethics, Aristotle tells us that not every action is a mean between two extremes — too much and too little. Some names indicate what is always base. He gives examples: “spite, shamelessness, envy, among feelings; adultery, theft, murder, among actions.” Such actions are unworthy. “Hence in doing these things we can never be … Read more
 “To call a spade a spade,” a phrase whose origin can be traced back to Plutarch, is defined by Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable as to be “outspoken, blunt, even to the point of rudeness.” The question of when Catholics should be outspoken, in this sense, has arisen over the heated reactions to … Read more
On July 29, 1997, a representative philosophe of our abortion culture, retired Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, was lavishly eulogized in St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington, D.C., where the Requiem Mass for President Kennedy had been sung in 1963. Richard Cardinal Cushing was relatively constrained back then, because liturgical depredations had not yet switched into … Read more
I married into a guy’s-guy family. War stories, fart jokes, sex tales, and harrowing narratives involving body parts, souped-up vehicles, and confrontations with law enforcement dominated the decidedly not-polite dinner conversation. This was all new and often entertaining to me, coming from a household of enforced manners, feigned politeness, imposed goodwill, and repressed aggressions. Both … Read more
Those of us who have argued for alternatives to individualistic capitalism and the bureaucratic welfare state are often told that we are good at pointing out problems but come up short on solutions — it’s a charge distributists hear often. Nevertheless, Pope Benedict XVI’s latest encyclical, Caritas in Veritate,challenges us to overcome the “market-plus-State” model, … Read more
As the White House backs away from the so-called public option in health-care reform, Catholic experts are hopeful that the proposed government control of the nation’s medical care will be put aside. They argue that rejecting the public option will better serve a culture of life, maintain the present high quality of health care, serve … Read more
Like most of you, I was edified by the pagan, Viking funeral that marked the passing of that champion of life, Sen. Edward Kennedy. I thought it particularly fitting the way they floated his human remains down the Charles River out to the bay in a burning boat made of the car he’d driven at … Read more
I am reading St. Augustine’s Confessions these days, for the second or third time. The whole thing is a great antidote for all that is confused and squalid about our own epoch, but more particularly for the sloth and folly that marks one’s own inner being. The book itself is an astonishing thing. You … Read more
In this Crisis Magazine classic, philosopher Peter Kreeft says that if you know what an apple is, you know enough to recognize the truth of the pro-life argument. I doubt there are many readers here who are pro-choice. Why, then, do I write an argument against abortion? Why preach to the choir? Preaching … Read more
The refugees returning to the Promised Land after 70 years of captivity in Babylon had a problem. He was a killjoy named Haggai, and he was chewing them out for rebuilding their houses. Â Well . . . that’s not exactly the case. His complaint wasn’t so much that they were building their houses as … Read more
My family was in England for the summer while I taught a law course at Cambridge University, and one afternoon my son and I happened upon an interesting program on the radio. It was a radio “play” featuring a self-confident young woman and Kenneth Lay, the now-deceased president of Enron who masterminded the company’s … Read more
In 1978, a young scholar in his early 30s named Bill Donohue, working on a book about the ACLU, went to New York City to interview its founder, Roger Baldwin. Donohue asked him why the ACLU was opposed to a moment of silent “meditation” in the classroom. Baldwin responded, “I suppose you could get by … Read more
According to tradition St. Thomas Aquinas once asked St. Bonaventure how he had acquired the deep theological wisdom he displayed in his writings. St. Bonaventure pointed to a crucifix and said that he had learned all he knew from contemplating it. If there are any prayerful Catholics in our pews with St. Bonaventure’s talents … Read more
When it was time for cake and ice cream following my eight-year-old son’s recent birthday dinner, I donned a pair of sunglasses. My husband and kids knew exactly why I went for the eye cover. It was to spare my dignity. Â You see, our family has a birthday tradition of taking turns around the … Read more
I recently heard a charming quote from novelist Edith Wharton to the effect that there are two roles in life — either that of a candle or of a mirror. I’m a mirror. Even when I thought I was a candle — years ago as an actor — I was really a mirror, trying my … Read more