Here’s a really cool site called Paleo-Future, devoted to chronicling the History of the Future. I’ve often thought such a subject would make a great book. After all, people have been making predictions forever, and it would be fun to see how the Assured Prophecies of Yesterday have panned out. Browsing through Paleo-Future, I note … Read more
In July 1943, Italian partisans toppled Fascist leader Benito Mussolini and threatened the German-Italian alliance. Hitler, on learning of Mussolini’s ouster, concluded that “Jew-loving” Pope Pius XII was involved. A Special Mission: Hitler’s Secret Plot to Seize the Vatican and Kidnap Pope Pius XII Dan Kurzman, Perseus Books, 285 pages, $26 In July … Read more
The Jesuit College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, is in trouble. Bishop Robert J McManus, S.T.D., issued a statement on October 10th warning President Michael McFarland, S.J., that the official Catholic status of Holy Cross was at risk. The reason for the showdown? On October 24, representatives of both Planned Parenthood and NARAL … Read more
A topic arose recently in a group discussion relating to the vexed matter of “intelligent design.” My impression is that, in its broadest outlines, the question at stake asks whether science, at the end of the day, is obliged to acknowledge a Designer at the root of things, and that, at least as matters stand … Read more
Amid the footage of protestors, zealots, and activists featured in Tony Kaye’s documentary Lake of Fire, it is linguist and political provocateur Noam Chomsky who best outlines Kaye’s approach to the subject matter of his abortion film: “Choice is legitimate,” he says. “Preserving life is legitimate. And sometimes they come into conflict.” Unrated, 152 minutes … Read more
If you want to see President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s legacy, look around you. Scores of agencies created during his tenure are still around, including Social Security and welfare. The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression Amity Shlaes; HarperCollins; 390 pages. Reviewed by Martin Morse Wooster If you want to see … Read more
During the Second World War, when the Nazis moved into a new area, local religious leaders could present a threat to their authority. It was not unusual for the Nazis to send priests and ministers to concentration camps. Priestblock 25487: A Memoir Of Dachau Jean Bernard, translated by Deborah Lucas Schneider Zaccheus Press (2007) … Read more
The loss of the Judeo-Christian vision in the West has many casualties, perhaps none so obvious as the degradation of our popular culture. We might think of art as the canary in the coal mine, the death of the canary being the early warning of foul air. In a like manner, art in the West … Read more
The New York Times yesterday ran a review of the documentary Lake of Fire — a film it called "an unblinking look at the violent fight over abortion in the United States" — by British director Tony Kaye. The New York Times yesterday ran a review of the documentary Lake of Fire — a film … Read more
It has been one year since Pope Benedict XVI’s ill-starred Regensburg Address. We say “ill-starred” because the media fixated on a side comment the pope made about Islam, apparently to clinch a depiction of the pope as intolerant. In the process, they obscured the luminous center of the pope’s speech, the relationship of science and … Read more
Historians have much reason to be grateful to the memorialists of the 17th and 18th centuries. Given that Antonia Fraser has made “love and Louis XIV” the subject of her latest work, she is certainly indebted to the Princess Elizabeth Charlotte (Liselotte) of Bavaria, sister-in-law of the Sun King, whom Fraser calls her favorite among … Read more
A round of ritual lamentations on the demise of the classical music recording industry has ushered in yet another bountiful fall harvest of CDs. In fact, according to Newsweek, while overall music sales declined by 5 percent last year, classical music sales grew by 22 percent. A large part of that astonishing figure apparently has … Read more
"Je suis l’Armée Britannique!" declared Sir Hugh Dacre Barrett-Lennard (1917-2007) to a startled French mayor at the Normandy invasion when he arrived with driver and jeep far behind enemy lines, in the 2nd Batallion, Essex Regiment. His title only came with accession to the baronetcy when he was 60 years old, as the result … Read more
Notorious atheists like Christopher Hitchens try to convince us that the world would be a more humane place if we could give up on the idea of God, but Tod Lindberg provides a cogent argument in The Political Teachings of Jesus that the modern world’s most cherished liberal values — religious tolerance, equality, freedom, and … Read more
The recent partial-birth abortion case, in which the Supreme Court upheld certain restrictions passed by a state legislature, generated what has become the usual — and uncontroversial — anti-Catholic venting by the nation’s chattering classes. Commentators huffed that the majority in the case was composed of Catholics who, it was whispered, may have acted on … Read more
Anthony Esolen’s Ironies of Faith is a very dated kind of book. There is nothing of the first-person narrative that adorns modern books, where the author tells us why something matters to him. Ironies of Faith: The Laughter at the Heart of Christian Literature Anthony Esolen, ISI Books, 412 pages, $18 Anthony Esolen’s … Read more
Ramesh Ponnuru, an honoree at the Morley Institute’s 25th Anniversary Partnership Dinner, offered remarks at the event on his search for truth and the defense of life. * * * It is generous of you to recognize me since I have been a Catholic in public life for such a short period of time. My … Read more
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything Christopher Hitchens, Twelve Books, 307 pages, $24.99 One is tempted to quip that Christopher Hitchens is certainly one of the best minds of the 18th century, but that would be to give Hitchens too much credit as an equal to Voltaire in wit. He is not, and … Read more
Two years ago, the mainstream media gathered in a special conclave in Rome to discuss the disastrous election to the papacy of Ratzinger the Enforcer, God’s Rottweiler, the hardliner, inflexible, rigid, etc., blah blah. Some of us suggested to our television screens that the talking heads might want to wait more than a few seconds … 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