► This column was updated with Maryknoll’s response at 4:45pm, April 9, 2008. Their letter follows the original piece. An editorial in the Jesuit’s America magazine recently predicted that Sen. Barack Obama will profit by the upcoming visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the United States. The moment the Holy Father denounces the war … Read more
Well brought-up children are taught to say thank you, along with all of the other greetings and responses that attend polite life. Such responses must be imposed at first, of course, and learned by rote, but soon enough they become habitual, and virtually unconscious. This does not, however, mean that they are fraudulent. Somehow … Read more
As promised, I will end this trilogy on American classical music (see the previous January and February installments) by covering some of the recent releases of works by composers of whom you have probably never heard. I believe their music demonstrates what I have contended in my last two missives: that American music has recovered … Read more
My niece’s husband is a trainee Baptist pastor. Jimbo’s hip, friendly, and fun to be with. He’s smart and theologically savvy. I like him. He loves Jesus and believes the Bible, and on most moral and doctrinal issues I can affirm what he affirms. We agree on a lot. But even when we agree, we … Read more
Ron Paul received a campaign contribution from a neo-Nazi. Mike Huckabee made a public visit to the church of evangelical pastor John Hagee, known for his anti-Catholicism. After Huckabee freed himself of the mess, John McCain landed in it with Hagee’s endorsement. Now, Barack Obama is struggling to do damage control following his decades-long association … Read more
J. R. R. Tolkien spent nearly 20 pages defining fairy tales in his 1946 essay “On Fairy-Stories” (found in The Tolkien Reader). This essay, a favorite of his friend C. S. Lewis’s, summarizes many of the attitudes toward storytelling that guided his creation of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Tolkien’s insights provide general … Read more
The February 20 issue of the Denver Catholic Register published a column on the Jesuits titled "Some Questions for Father General" by George Weigel. In response, the president of the University of San Francisco, Rev. Stephen A. Privett, S.J., published "Attack on Jesuits Out of Place" in Catholic San Francisco, the archdiocesan newspaper. Father … Read more
One of the strangest charges tossed about in American politics in recent years has been the assertion that those on the “religious right” (i.e., conservative Christians, mostly Evangelical Protestants, who are active in politics) are “theocrats.” These folks, so the accusation runs, wish to transform the United States from a democracy into a theocracy. When … Read more
Let’s say you want your computer fixed or your software explained. You can shell out big bucks to the Geek Squad, or you can ask — but you can’t hire — a typical teenager, or even a pre-teen. Their experience with computers and the online world is vastly superior to most people over the age … Read more
Brian Saint-Paul speaks with Dr. Thomas Woods Jr. about isolationism, non-interventionism, the foreign policy of the Founders, and how we got where we are today. ♦ ♦ ♦ Brian Saint-Paul: In the realm of foreign policy, what’s the difference between isolationism and non-interventionism? The terms are often used interchangeably — and incorrectly — in the … Read more
On the Feast of the Annunciation in 2003, Military Archbishop Edwin O’Brien wrote: “Long after the [Iraq] hostilities cease, the debate likely will continue as to the moral justification for the armed force recently initiated by the United States and its allies. It is to be hoped that all factors which have led to our … Read more
A sumptuous travel magazine — to which, I need scarcely add, we do not subscribe — arrived in our letter box the other day. Things are so beautifully laid-out these days that one cannot always tell whether a given item is actually just a piece of advertising. In any case, the cover shows … Read more
InsideCatholic.com asked prominent Catholic leaders, writers, and commentators to offer their predictions for 2008. There were some surprises… InsideCatholic.com asked prominent Catholic leaders, writers, and commentators to offer their predictions for 2008. They run the gamut from the humorous to the serious, from the likely to the merely hopeful. Obviously, the prognostications expressed are strictly … Read more
A culture of death is a culture of fear and ours is a culture of death. Fear is a sort of background radiation, a certain slant of light coming through red, lowering clouds and casting a strange pall over what used to be called “normal life.” The signs of it are everywhere. Here’s some Muslim … Read more
This is the third of a four-part debate between Robert R. Reilly and Russell Shaw on the question, “Was the Iraq War just?” I take no pleasure disagreeing with an admirable individual like Bob Reilly over the merits of a cause to which he’s as passionately committed as he is to the war in Iraq. … Read more
The unanimous vote by St. Thomas University’s Board of Trustees to sever ties with the St. Paul-Minneapolis Archdiocese is just the most recent attempt by a Catholic university to limit the influence of orthodox Catholic leaders on its campus. Voting to change the university’s bylaw that maintained the sitting archbishop of St. Paul-Minneapolis as the … Read more
One’s thoughts don’t ordinarily run much to the pharaohs in connection with Advent. Insofar as Egypt might crop up at all, it would seem more fitting to hold it for the Flight into Egypt after the Nativity. In any case, I received a card this past week from a Discalced Carmelite nun friend of … Read more
A Consumer’s Guide to the Apocalypse: Why There Is No Cultural War in America and Why We Will Perish Nonetheless Eduardo Velasquez, ISI Books, 200 pages, $22 Our contemporary culture reveals the “darkness the Enlightenment can no longer conceal.” That’s the thesis of Eduardo Velasquez’s fascinating new book, A Consumer’s Guide to the Apocalypse: Why … Read more
The last eight Carmelite monks in America, perhaps even the world, live in a four-bedroom rectory in the mountains of northwest Wyoming. With 35 candidates in various stages of discernment, they hope to move 70 miles away to a 492-acre property near Carter Mountain once owned by “Buffalo Bill” Cody as his hunting preserve. … Read more
“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” We hear this bracing sentiment often enough in musical and liturgical settings, most notably in the seraphic motet by Tomás Luis de Victoria, or in the spare sequence of chant. When it is conveyed to us under these modalities, … Read more