If ever there were a book designed specifically for the enjoyment of InsideCatholic readers, surely it is Benjamin Wiker’s new 10 Books that Screwed Up the World: And 5 Others that Didn’t Help. Wiker should be renowned (if he is not already) for Moral Darwinism: How We Became Hedonists — a book that at once … Read more
Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life Charles J. Chaput, Doubleday, 258 pages, $21.95 Twenty years ago, Richard John Neuhaus foresaw a new era of Catholic engagement with American society and politics. “This can and should be the moment in which the Roman Catholic Church in the United … Read more
Students of history will always find the month of August a little ominous. In August 1920, the Red Army invading Poland (led by neoconservative hero Leon Trotsky) nearly captured Warsaw and spilled into central Europe, whence it might well have conquered a prostrate Germany, Austria, and Hungary — just for starters. The heroic Polish defeat … Read more
“In the earthly liturgy we take part in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the holy city of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims. . . . We sing a hymn to the Lord’s glory with all the warriors of the heavenly army.” The Second Vatican Council’s account of empyreal … Read more
Here’s a truism: If you’re running for President, don’t answer a question by saying, “That’s above my pay grade.” After all, if you want to occupy the White House, there is no higher pay grade. You are the boss, and the buck stops with you. But Barack Obama used precisely that expression when asked by … Read more
In my hometown, the peace rallies are always sponsored by the Unitarians. Actually, it is they who are the participants too. Ain’t My America: The Long, Noble History of Antiwar Conservatism and Middle-American Anti-Imperialism By Bill Kauffman, Metropolitan Books, $25, 304 pages In my hometown, the peace rallies are always sponsored … Read more
Here’s some advice for anyone starting a job as literary editor for a Catholic online journal: For your first book review, avoid novels whose central character is an atheist lesbian who fights to adopt a child and who eventually commits suicide. Here’s some advice for anyone starting a job as literary editor for a … Read more
Go to any news Web Site and find an article on George Bush, Barack Obama, or John McCain. Start reading the comments section — there may be several hundred if it’s a major news site like MSNBC or Fox News. Before long, you’ll begin to feel like you have been punched in the face or … Read more
These are perhaps the most famous gates in the world — certainly among the most photographed. We gathered outside, a vast crowd of us, forming a neat line — as British people still do when in traditional mode — talking, taking photographs, fussing about. This is a Buckingham Palace garden party, one of … Read more
Not long ago, someone at a Web site called “The Smirking Chimp” saw an episode of my EWTN series “The Catholic Church: Builder of Civilization” (based on my book How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization) and took me to task for my comments about Galileo. According to the Chimpster, my argument was: “Galileo had … Read more
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
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
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
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