Director Yôji Yamada, creator of more than 70 films and a legend of Japanese cinema, has always been most famous for his contemporary dramas and TV series (his Otoko wa tsurai yo series alone has 48 installments). But like many Japanese directors, he was drawn from a young age to the samurai films of Akira … Read more
America, though a wealthy nation, is nevertheless becoming socially stratified — so much so that those at the fringes of life have lost touch with those at the top. The rich refer to the “poverty problem,” and the poor, in turn, blame the rich for all their woes. This rift opens a door for the … Read more
Objections continue to be raised to the charge that Senator Barack Obama supports infanticide, most recently in a Huffington Post column by Seth Colter Walls. I have made this claim myself, as have Sen. Rick Santorum, Terry Jeffreys, Jill Stanek, Bill Donohue, Gary Bauer, and Nat Hentoff. It’s a dramatic charge, but here are the … Read more
Some time ago, a friend of mine introduced me to a wonderful bit of parody that begins: Awake from your slumber! Arise from your sleep! The homily’s over! It wasn’t too deep! It brings to mind the old joke that the difference between a liturgist and a terrorist is that you can reason with a … Read more
The Anglican Church is cracking up, Rev. Dwight Longenecker argued yesterday. Today, David Mills wonders about the fate of our closest kin: the Anglo-Catholics. Catholics who keep up with Anglicanism may have observed that the whole thing seems to be visibly coming apart. On the one hand, at June’s rally of the world’s … Read more
St. Peter, as the legend goes, was fleeing the persecution in Rome when he met Christ going the other way. The Lord asked him, “Quo Vadis?” — where are you going? He might well be asking the members of the Anglican Communion the same question. Their reply would be, “We’re not quite sure, Lord, but … Read more
In the summer of 1993, a young woman on my staff came back from lunch one afternoon screaming mad. I had just started as president of the Catholic League and wanted to know what her problem was. It so happened that over lunch (in the New York Archdiocese’s cafeteria) she was berated by a young … Read more
To worship God at all is to find oneself on a very odd frontier. Here we are, addressing all sorts of fervid sentiments into the ether — or so it might seem to a chance observer. A passerby might ask, “To whom are you talking, pray? God? But you have never once seen him nor … Read more
There will be much media mischief aimed at Catholic voters between now and November 4. Perhaps the best example thus far appeared in the Trenton Times on July 30. The headline of reporter Jeff Trently’s article tells you all you need to know about his intentions: “U.S. Bishops: Vote your conscience, Catholics urged to weigh … Read more
Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul Kenneth Miller, Viking Adult, 256 pages, $25.95 The best parts of Kenneth Miller’s Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul are surprisingly those parts that deal only incidentally with his thesis: that the battle waged against evolution in the … Read more
When I became a Catholic in my twenties, my family teased me that I would have to eat fish on Fridays — a food I had avoided since childhood. Their idea of Catholicism came mostly from old memories; by that time, in the early 1980s, Fishful Fridays had long ceased to be a badge of … Read more
Alan Moore — pagan, anarchist, wildly bearded author of V for Vendetta and the terrific superhero-deconstruction comic Watchmen — is not the person one might expect to write a poignant story of homecoming, conscience, repentance, and renewal. Then again, he is just the sort of person to write a horror comic about an advertising designer … Read more
Taken into Custody: The War against Fatherhood, Marriage, and the Family Stephen Baskerville, Cumberland House, 352 pages, $24.95 For whatever reason, social conservatives focus considerable political effort on abortion, gay rights, and obscenity, but pay scant attention to divorce. Perhaps they think that ship has sailed for good, whereas other battles still offer winnable stakes. … Read more
Last May in Tucson, Arizona, two young men named Armando Estrada and Rosendo C. Valenzuela were working for Mamie Gong, an elderly Chinese woman. Mamie, who owned a trailer park and some land outside the city, had hired the men to help her clean up some trash that had accumulated on the vacant parcel. … Read more
Welcome to NFP Club. The first rule of NFP Club is: You do not talk about NFP Club. You can’t talk to engaged couples about NFP — you’ll scare them away. You can’t talk to experienced older couples, either, or you’ll get an earful about the bad old days of rhythm-and-blues and 23 children. You … Read more
Christopher Hitchens, in a fairly typical misreading of the Judeo-Christian tradition, is fond of pointing out that “the Jewish people did not get all the way to Mount Sinai under the impression that murder and theft and perjury were okay.” Oblivious to the Church’s entire tradition of the natural law, he fancies he’s scored a … Read more
Last month I began a look at the flood of fantastic summer releases, which only confirms for me that we are indeed in a golden age of recording. This month I’ll pick up where we left off. Three new CPO releases convince me that only now are we getting a fuller glimpse of the … Read more
In connection with the same-sex marriage controversy now burning in California, I read the following about a priest from a famous gay-friendly parish in Pasadena: The Rev. Susan Russell of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, who has been blessing same-sex unions for 16 years, told the San Jose Mercury News this month that she … Read more
“Don’t talk to me about those idiots, cluttering the fields with their easels. Had I the authority of a tyrant, I’d order the police to shoot them all down.” This was Edgar Degas, speaking less about the then-contemporary rage for landscape painting than about the ideals of the Impressionists. He was, to understate the case, … Read more
In May 2007, Benedict XVI flew to meet with the bishops of Mexico, Central America, and South America. While on the plane, the pope answered a question from a reporter about the Mexican bishops who were threatening to withhold the Eucharist from Catholic politicians who voted in favor of legalizing abortion. The Holy Father expressed … Read more
