Except for a few saints and possibly a handful of bishops, Orestes Brownson and Isaac Hecker were the two most interesting American Catholics of the 19th century. They were certainly the most intellectually interesting and, in the long run, the most influential. The matters they agreed on, and especially those they disagreed on, are crucial … Read more
Subjectivism, deconstructionism, postmodernism, multiculturalism—there is a blight on scholarly research today, cast by the epistemic “isms.” No field is safe. Even in physics, the “isms” are attempting to spin every idea as nothing more than one person’s opinion or the accidental product of historical evolution. Physicist Alan Sobel exposed this effort when he sent a … Read more
At an international conference on liturgical music sponsored by the Vatican on December 5, 2005, Monsignor Valentino Miserachs Grau dropped a bomb. Being the head of the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music, and the leading voice for the Catholic Faith in all matters of music, his topic was not merely of academic interest, nor was … Read more
In his first book, The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life, National Review senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru fills a gap, providing the first general overview of life issues written for a popular audience in the last 20 years. It’s a badly needed effort, for the situation has … Read more
Every ten seconds, a man, woman, or child in Africa dies from an AIDS-related disease. According to the USAIDS/World Health Organization (WHO), 40.3 million people now live with HIV infections, two-thirds of them in sub-Saharan Africa. In Swaziland, 42.6 percent of pregnant women test positive for HIV. There’s no cure for this killer, and no … Read more
Scenario 1: You’re discussing Divine Providence with your friends over a bottle of wine and mention that, in a strict sense, the Holocaust was “God’s will.” Your Jewish friend stuffs the cork up your nose. Scenario 2: An unchurched fellow wanders into the local revival meeting where he hears the preacher say, “You could have … Read more
There’s big money to be made in undermining traditional Christianity. We saw it first in the phenomenal success of The Da Vinci Code, the film version of which will be in theaters later this month. You’re already no doubt familiar with the book’s unrelenting attack on the Church. And the movie looks to be no … Read more
When Pope Benedict XVI’s first encyclical came out, the media were a bit confused. They, along with eager conservatives, were expecting the new pope to line up the ecclesiastical howitzers and mow down dissenters in crisp, staccato prose. Instead, they got Deus Caritas Est, “God Is Love.” Had the pope gone soft? Even daft? Too … Read more
I have just returned from Rome, where a senior member of the Curia asked me to tell readers of The Window the following story. You may have already heard its beginning, but in all likelihood not its end. On Sunday, February 5, 2006, while praying in his church, an Italian priest by the name of … Read more
I never saw James Charles Risk (1913–2005) in a plain business suit. A dinner jacket without decorations was to him tantamount to aboriginal nudity. Lifelong interest in numismatics led to the study of royal orders and decorations, plenty of which garnished his wiry frame. Like all civilized men who find time for high things … Read more
In June 2000, the Los Angeles Times released a poll that found Americans “evenly split” regarding Roe v. Wade, one of the two 1973 Supreme Court rulings that created a constitutional right to abortion. Forty-three percent of respondents indicated that they approved of the decision, while 42 percent disapproved. At the time, the Times’s poll … Read more
Pro-lifers fumed during the 2004 presidential race when John Kerry attacked opponents of embryonic stem-cell (ESC) research as “anti-science” ideologues who sought to block life-saving cures “right at our fingertips.” “This is not the way we do things in America. Here in America, we don’t sacrifice science for ideology,” Kerry argued in an August … Read more
The intense battle to prevent Terri Schiavo’s husband from removing her feeding tube was horrible enough. To think that some American Catholic universities — and their ethics, theology, law, and medical professors — bear some responsibility for Schiavo’s slow death is almost too much to imagine. Yet prior to Schiavo’s death, professors from top Catholic … Read more
Faced with the lurid, tragic landscape of the Catholic Church’s child sex-abuse scandal, some of the laity have posed the question: Where were the nuns when this was going on? Playwright John Patrick Shanley offers a rich, multi-layered response to this and many other related matters — theological, psychological, and moral — in Doubt, a … Read more
I met my guide, Helmut Konitzer, at the airport. A German who visits the West Bank to assist the sisters, monks, and priests living there, Helmut had the look of a well-cut drifter. I wasn’t surprised when he told me his preferred mode of transportation was his motorcycle, especially when medicines have to be delivered quickly … Read more
Much has been made of pro-abortion politicians flaunting their Catholic identity and receiving the Eucharist. The U.S. bishops, in their June statement “Catholics in Political Life” and at their November meeting in Washington, D.C., backed away from confronting wayward Catholics like Senator John Kerry and Senator Ted Kennedy who clearly ought to remain seated at … Read more
A tip to travelers: Avoid Zekistan. It has crummy tourist amenities and lethal concentrations of lead. I found this out back in June, patrolling one side of a city street in the country’s capital. I was hunting for fedayeen with Alpha Team, a stick of four light infantry troopers. Across the street, Bravo Team … Read more
Paris, Saturday, January 14, 2004. We are at Maillot Gate, a few steps away from the Champs Elysées and the business quarter of La Defense. On the left is the 34-story skyscraper of the Hotel Concorde La Fayette—a disruptive landmark amid the gorgeous town houses whose plush façades date back to the end of the … Read more
Aizawl, Mizoram State, on the India-Burma border: It was dusk as we made our way down the mountainside to the headquarters of the Chin National Front (CNF). We were a motley crew—a deputy speaker of the British House of Lords, a retired surgeon, a British doctor living in Australia, a journalist-turned-human-rights advocate, a bearded, beer-drinking … Read more
Last month, Jesuit Rev. Lawrence Biondi, president of St. Louis University, resigned from the board of directors of Tenet Healthcare Corporation. Biondi had served on the board since 1998, most recently as chairman of Tenet’s ethics committee, for which he was eligible for annual compensation of more than $100,000. Biondi, like many Catholic college presidents, … Read more