There’s been a strange turn of opinions about fatherhood—at least in recent public debates. Decades of research have now documented the tremendous challenges children face when they grow up without their fathers. But you would never know it by looking at some of the recent public arguments for “genderless parenting.” So what do the decades … Read more
The success that the gay community has achieved in shedding the “deviant” label has relied upon convincing the heterosexual world that homosexual behavior is perfectly normal. The recent uproar over a social work course titled “Deviant Behavior” at Franciscan University of Steubenville—which lists homosexuality as a form of deviant behavior—demonstrates just how vigilant the gay … Read more
On November 7th—the day after President Obama’s re-election—a lot of conservative bloggers tried to make the best of a bad outcome, but hyperbole also seems a frequent sight in the headlines. “The End of America I Know.” “The Day After America.” “Is America Still Exceptional?” Many seem to feel as though the republic has fallen. … Read more
Our quadrennial spectacle of electing a president brings out the relationship between political order and the nation’s cultural and social order. Take the question of “rights,” which is a concept at the heart of the American experiment. Based on the nation’s revolt from England, and deeply grounded in the mother country’s common law tradition, rights … Read more
In this column, it has been my special brief to pursue and attempt to resuscitate the reputation of great 20th century and contemporary classical music that I think has been neglected. There is a lot of it, which is why I published a book 10 years ago, titled Surprised by Beauty: A Listener’s Guide to … Read more
One exchange in the second Presidential debate caught my imagination. It was the one in which Mr Romney asked Mr Obama whether he ever thought about his pension, and Mr Obama replied that he did not, but that he was sure that it was smaller than Mr Romney’s. Of course, Mr Romney’s question was itself … Read more
G. K. Chesterton once described America as a “nation with the soul of a church.” Many have wrongly interpreted this statement as Chesterton’s way of saying that America was a Christian nation, or that Americans were especially pious and devout people. Chesterton meant something rather different, and not especially complementary. America is like a church … Read more
By now everyone paying attention to the presidential race has heard of the tasteless double-entendre ad the Obama campaign has put out, comparing voting for the President to losing your virginity. I am trying—I am failing—to imagine the astonishment if someone had suggested the like to the leaders of the Democratic party of my youth … Read more
Remember the pill scene from the movie Matrix? Neo is offered a choice between a red and a blue pill. The red pill promises only the truth. The blue pill offers the blissful ignorance to the fact that he is a human battery, one of millions that power futuristic machines. What’s really incredible about the … Read more
Winston Churchill deserves the credit for replacing the word “lies” with the “fabrication of terminological inexactitudes.” No one wants to be accused of telling a lie. Churchill’s ingenious phrase may mean the same thing as a lie, but it has considerably less sting. By the time the accused figures out what these words mean, the … Read more
One of the greatest Catholic intellects and writers of the twentieth century, Christopher Dawson (1889-1970), worried deeply about the ideological, political, and cultural crises of the western world during the entirety of his adult life. The root of the problem, Dawson had come to believe between the two world wars, was the fundamental decline in … Read more
The Vatican has intervened in the guidelines on Catholic liturgical music in the U.S. It has sent a message to U.S. publishers that it objects to extending the official text of the Agnus Dei to add additional text. The practice is called “troping” but that’s using a rather high-minded and deeply historical term for what … Read more
One of the privileges of writing this column is that I occasionally get to meet the composers of the music I review. I had a meeting this past year with a musician with whom I have been in correspondence for some time. Morten Lauridsen, the most frequently performed American choral composer, came to Washington, D.C. … Read more
Monsignor Ronald Knox, probably the most inspired preacher and apologist of the twentieth century, wrote an essay in 1928 satirizing some skeptical Biblical literary critics, in which he used their methods to “prove” that the real author of Tennyson’s In Memoriam was Queen Victoria. Many who doubt the plausibility of the Scriptures are gullible about hoaxes. I don’t just mean … Read more
The title of Gregory Wolfe’s excellent collection of essays, Beauty Will Save the World, is based on a much-quoted line from Dostoevsky’s The Idiot. In its context it appears only in indirect speech, being attributed by one of the other characters to the “Idiot” of the title, Prince Myshkin. Thus in its original context its … Read more
Thomas Aquinas, practical fellow that he was, understood that not all bad things can feasibly be proscribed by human law. It isn’t because people disagree about what is bad, but rather that a well-governed polity should require few laws, easily promulgated and understood, broadly promoting the common good, wherein the lawgiver can attend to things … Read more
Advocates of abortion and birth control often speak of “empowering women” with unbiased and vital information about “reproductive health.” Their silence following regular warnings about the negative side-effects of contraceptives, however, calls into question the nature of their concern for women’s health. On September 26, 2011, the FDA announced that it “remains concerned by the potential … Read more
Socrates was fond of repeating the advice of the Oracle: “Know thyself.” He probably said, “Know thyself,” rather than, “Know the world,” because it is more difficult to know oneself than to know the world. Self-introspection yields not ourselves, but something approaching infinity beyond ourselves. The first thing we know about ourselves is that we … Read more
The film “For Greater Glory: The True Story of Cristiada,” starring Andy Garcia, Mauricio Kuri, Eva Longoria, Eduardo Verástegui, Peter O’Toole, Santiago Cabrera and Oscar Isaac, is now available on DVD and very timely as Catholics, some 25 percent of the U.S. population, prepare to vote on November 6. Verástegui, who plays Blessed Anacleto Gonzalez Flores, … Read more
I would like to talk a little about the idea promoted by Christopher Alexander, where “making wholeness heals the maker.” This has to do with the act of creation and, in particular, its application in art and the production of artifacts and architecture. It is a fundamental concept in creating small items, but I want … Read more
