While the supporters of same-sex marriage dismissed claims from critics who predicted that once the Supreme Court opened the door to same-sex marriage in Obergefell in 2015, it would only be a matter of time before polygamous marriages would begin to be normalized. And although there are still laws against polygamy, polyamorous marriages are already … Read more
As I write, there is no customary and comforting glass of bourbon at my side. There’s no refreshing gin and tonic; no hearty glass of craft ale. It is Lent and all such blessings have been set aside. And yet, even in the desert, Holy Mother Church leads us to the occasional oasis, a place … Read more
The #MeToo movement has finally reached Rome, and the wisdom of priestly celibacy is being hotly questioned. As it happens, H.G. Wells questioned it just as hotly nearly a century ago, and along many of the same lines. Though his denouncements of the Catholic Church and her priesthood have been largely forgotten, it is his … Read more
Scholars and pundits for generations have been making comparisons between the United States and the late Roman Empire. Such analogies date back to America’s Founding Fathers, notes Andrew Sullivan in a recent piece for New York Magazine. These men were deeply conscious of the decline of the Roman Republic, brought on by bitter and bloody … Read more
Super Tuesday has come and gone, effectively narrowing the Democratic Party’s presidential race for these United States down to two: septuagenarians Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, both of whom are older than their Republican opponent by a mere four or five years. We have come a long way from the days when Ronald Reagan ran … Read more
I have in my study a silver vase holding four peacock plumes and several parrot feathers. The plumes were dropped decades ago by avian residents of Andalusia, a dairy farm near Milledgeville, Georgia. The feathers come from my own Patagonian conures. The farm was once the property of Regina O’Connor and her daughter, Flannery. Both … Read more
You may have caught wind of the latest attempt by Elon Musk to improve upon our human lot, this time by wiring our brains into computers through implanted chips connected to ultrathin threads lacing our brain (hence, the name “neuralace”). If you can’t decipher his white paper, then catch his popular presentation on YouTube. The … Read more
The White House recently released a draft of a proposed executive order, titled Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again. This unexpected proposal sounded a clarion call to restore “classical and traditional architecture styles” in the future construction of Federal Government buildings in the capital and throughout the nation’s heartland, and discourage the post-1950s Corbusian trends of … Read more
“Remember man, thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.” — Genesis 3:19 Every Catholic just loves Ash Wednesday, just as every Catholic just loves Lent. Those were my thoughts as I slipped out of church, my brow smeared with that stark Catholic smudge. Passing the young priest in the vestibule where he stood … Read more
When he was 13 years old, a mere boy was effectively the American ambassador to Russia, in Saint Petersburg. This was because the lad was fluent in French while his nominal superior, the ambassador himself, was not. The boy had already, at his father’s instruction, translated works of Plutarch from Greek and poems by Horace … Read more
A colleague at the Catholic high school where I teach approached me recently with a question. Girls at our school, he said, often dress immodestly. What could he do? He had studied Church documents and read lay publications that deplored the modern degeneration of women’s fashions. Some of these documents cite evidence of a Masonic … Read more
Published 75 years ago in 1945, George Orwell’s Animal Farm presents revolution as a thing true to its name: revolving and returning like an infernal circle to the despotic power and blind capitulation originally repulsed. It is a principle suggestive of an ingrained brutality in political animals that cannot be broken. And the political animals … Read more
The novelist Graham Greene belonged to a grand era in English Catholicism that began with Newman and ended around 1960. According to the author, his many books fall into two general categories: those works of fiction he described as “entertainments,” and the others he called simply “novels.” The latter reflect the degree to which Greene—a … Read more
The Feast of the Presentation recalls the old man Simeon chanting thanks for having lived to see the Messiah. His Nunc Dimittis—“Let thy servant depart in peace”—is part of the Church’s evening prayers. In 542 in Constantinople, the Emperor Justinian placed it into the Eastern Liturgy. This year the Feast fell on Super Bowl Sunday. … Read more
During a hilarious 2018 performance in London, comedy musicians Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords stop to chat about gender identity dynamics within their two-man band. “The band is very male-dominated. It’s systemic. It’s a systemic problem—it’s the f***ing patriarchy!” they declare to an audience roaring with laughter. McKenzie and Clement, … Read more
Overroads is marked down for demolition. Last year, the owners of the former home of G.K. Chesterton and his wife, Frances, put the house on the market with an asking price of £1.9 million pounds (about $2.4 million dollars). They found no buyers, and so turned to property developers. These, in turn, applied to the … Read more
The recent announcement by Their Former Royal Highnesses, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex—aka Prince Harry and Meghan Markle—that they are “leaving the royal family” has caused endless comment around the globe, and not only among the Queen’s British, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, and other subjects. Sixth in line to the throne occupied by his … Read more
I don’t watch Hollywood award shows anymore, although there was a time in my life when I did. In my early college days, I would turn on the television to gape at the pre-awards red carpet glamor, and then chow on popcorn while relishing every acceptance speech over the next few hours, all the while … Read more
The Two Popes is not so much a picture as it is propaganda. The Netflix original follows the mode of the liberal media, presenting imagined interactions and conversations between Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis (when he was Cardinal Bergoglio) that further an agenda that is bent on denouncing the Catholic Church with slick cinematography. … Read more
I was finishing my morning coffee and nothing in particular was occupying my mind. A black-capped chickadee suddenly appeared before my eyes, walking alongside our front yard maple tree. It was busy, no doubt looking for food. At that moment it seemed to be operating with more purpose than I was. This tiny little oviparous … Read more
