Whenever I’m in a diner or a family restaurant, I look around for the most cheerful thing in any day’s experience, and that’s a young husband and wife and their children. Today the two children sitting with their parents at the table next to us were a baby boy and his four-year-old brother. The four … Read more
The other day I learned something startlingly new about young people. So startling, in fact, that I was quite blindsided by it. When I say young, by the way, I mean the first generation to come of age in a world surrounded by—indeed, defined by—computers. The generation, that is, of my own children. And most … Read more
James Christian Aggeles is a paranoid schizophrenic with various personality disorders and grandiose delusions, which came to the forefront after he donated sperm to Xytex Corp., a “fertility company” based in Atlanta, Georgia. Mr. Aggeles claimed to have an I.Q. of 160 (well above Stephen Hawking’s and Einstein’s), with various degrees, and working on a Ph.D. … Read more
British author Alexander Pope was perhaps the first writer to turn a “bad hair day” into a poem—really, a satirical tragedy. Modern Americans, bereft of a sense of humor and inclined to view reality through the lens of a selfie, turn their bad hair days into epic farces. On the way to work in Washington … Read more
No knees and no scars from any cross—two distinguishing marks of the devil. Pope Emeritus Benedict reminds us of Satan’s form in a story from the Desert Fathers: “He looked black and ugly, with frighteningly thin limbs, but, most strikingly, he had no knees.” Ven. Fulton Sheen says that “Satan may appear in many disguises … Read more
I recently returned from three weeks on the road to find a stack of mail on my doorstep. Amongst the bills and magazines, I found a charming invitation to a Sunday brunch being hosted by a family I had known for several years. They had recently welcomed three new babies to the (extended) family, and … Read more
Martin Luther cut a figure of such massive importance that reflections on him are a Rorschach test for theologians and historians alike. In few instances have personality and principle been so melded. If the Dominican Aquinas argued contra and sed contra, the former Augustinian would settle his case by slapping the table: “Dr. Martin Luther … Read more
Ludwig van Beethoven, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart form the great trinity of Western classical composers. Of the three, it is Beethoven whose religious beliefs have proven the most elusive. We know all about the devout Lutheranism of Bach, who wrote his music “for the glory of God and the refreshment of the … Read more
In the late autumn of 1888, five women were brutally murdered in Whitechapel, London. All were prostitutes; all were living in squalor; all died horribly in the dead of night. The killings were as vicious as they were to become infamous. They were not the first, nor, indeed, the last, of such slayings in London, … Read more
“Education,” wrote Malcolm Muggeridge fifty years ago, “the great fraud and mumbo-jumbo of the age,” had not brought to the mass of men the best that has been done and thought and said, but rather spread ignorance and folly across the land. Muggeridge understood, though he did not feel he needed to say so explicitly, … Read more
One of GK Chesterton’s central themes was the necessity of gratitude. Here’s a characteristic passage. All my mental doors open outwards into a world I have not made. My last door of liberty opens upon a world of sun and solid things, of objective adventures. The post in the garden; the thing I neither create … Read more
The story of Judah Ben Hur a wealthy, influential Jewish prince betrayed by his friend Massala as he seeks to climb the ranks of Roman power, first appeared as a best-selling novel in 1880 penned by an unlikely writer, retired Civil War general Lew Wallace and was subtitled “A Tale of the Christ.” And the … Read more
Just before the 2016 Olympic Games began in Rio, Cardinal Orani Tempesta blessed the Olympic torch at the feet of the Statue of Christ the Redeemer. Images of Jesus with arms extended were beamed into homes around the world. This was not supposed to happen but there it was. Father Omar Raposo, rector at the … Read more
“It is not true, as is sometimes said, that man can organize the world without God. What is true is that, without God, he can ultimately only organize it against man. Exclusive humanism is inhuman humanism.” ∼ Henri de Lubac, The Drama of Atheist Humanism “If God does not exist … everything is permitted.” ∼ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, … Read more
The much-awaited Olympics is now upon us in Rio, a city in a country in a continent mired in unmanageable debt and corruption. Surrounded by poverty-stricken favelas, the city has poured billions into Olympic venues, security, advertising, all to watch a few thousand overhyped young athletes strive to excel at their chosen sport. Don’t get me … Read more
The age of the “body beautiful” will now become the age of the Assumption. ∼ Ven. Fulton Sheen “I am empowered by my body,” Kim Kardashian declared back on International Women’s Day, voicing triumph in an infamous nude selfie. In a society that worships the brazen sensuality of the body beautiful while eviscerating any link between … Read more
A colleague recently asked me to write for our students about what is euphemistically, and rather incorrectly, known as “swearing.” We have all perhaps heard our younger siblings yell, “Muuuum! Jimmy swore!” Yet Jimmy did not really “swear,” unless he is beyond his years, or brought into a court of law. Swearing literally is taking … Read more
If the demon you know really is better than the demon you don’t, we might expect on abundant evidence that societal intimacy with lust, pride, greed, envy, wrath, and gluttony would yield some positive results. This is not the case. For we seem only to know the vices, not the virtues. What’s more, we know … Read more
The very first lesson that I can recall in my undergraduate degree was on Plato’s Cave. The full meaning and depth of it barely penetrated my consciousness and as soon as I realized it was not “assessable” knowledge, I disregarded what little had sunk in. I lay part of the blame of this apathy on … Read more
In public discussion today, expertise has acquired the authority once held by good sense. The change reflects a change in attitudes toward society and politics. Educated, influential, and well-placed people now want a society run by global markets, financial institutions, and public administration based on supposedly neutral expertise. As such people’s response to Brexit shows, … Read more