He faces execution each day. Seven days a week, his jury of peers votes unanimously for capital punishment. The judge’s hand is typically stayed. Mercy reigns because the accused shows signs of improvement. Perhaps, this little boy will one day also become fully human. With him and his kind rests the fate of Western Civilization. … Read more
I have inadvertently joined a cult. No, that’s not right. Perhaps I should say that I have rejoined, for in the distant past I was more than an acolyte. Here is what happened. On an order form for review CDs, I saw a 14-disc set of recordings made in the late 1940s and early 1950s … Read more
The eclectic national Presidents Day, homogenizes our veneration of the man General “Lighthorse Harry” Lee eulogized as “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.” It also neglects Abraham Lincoln, who with the Father of Our Country made a pair unmatched for virtue and genius appropriate to their tasks … Read more
In Norse mythology, the earth was formed from the body of Ymir, the father of the frost giants. His blood became the ocean, and his skull the sky. It’s a grim vision of life, and yet a strikingly anthropomorphic one: The world is shaped like a man and the man is dead.
You can never get complete agreement on lists of movies. In this annual feature, the editors of Mercatornet.com try to select films which are worthwhile, entertaining and reasonably family-friendly. If you would like to nominate others, please make a comment. The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn Directed by Steven Spielberg … Read more
It was only in 1991 that the truth sank in to me: I am probably not going to die in a nuclear war. It’s conceivable I might have grandchildren. The magnificent City of New York, from the stained glass of St. Vincent Ferrer to the Art Deco gargoyles of the Chrysler Building, would not certainly … Read more
In Toy Story 3 the boy Andy is ready to go off to college. His room is being tidied and his toys are about to be boxed up and stored in the attic. Then, Mom makes a mistake and Woody, Buzz and the rest of the gang are packed off to a kiddie daycare center … Read more
Three major news magazines did it this past Easter season. One should feel guilty about letting these journals set the agenda for theological discourse, or for any discourse, for that matter. C. S. Lewis thought that the reading of any magazine was bad for one’s English (he died before the advent of Crisis). It cannot … Read more
Why the West is Best: A Muslim Apostate’s Defense of Liberal Democracy. By Ibn Warraq, Encounter Books, 286 pages, $19. One principal reason why the Islamic jihad is advancing with such confidence around the world today is because its chief competitor, the West, has lost its nerve. The iron and unquestionable dogma of multiculturalism … Read more
The following review originally appeared in the Summer 2005 edition of The Intercollegiate Review, and appears with the permission of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity, by Samuel P. Huntington, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004, $16. This is a rare book—erudite and readable, analytical but … Read more
In a piece written for Fox News on January 20, 2012, Dr. Keith Ablow, a psychologist,opines that Mr. Newt Gingrich might make an excellent President of the United States, not despite his three marriages, but because of them, or rather because of the rare personal qualities that would made the trigamy possible. Allow me at … Read more
Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century: A Comprehensive World History by Robert Royal, Crossroad Publishing Company, 2000, 430 pages, $20.00 This review originally appeared in the October 2000 edition of Crisis Magazine. In his encyclical Tertio Millenio Adveniente, preparing for the Jubilee Year 2000, Pope John Paul II stated: “At the end of … Read more
This is the last of Fr. Rutler’s columns on World War II. In future weeks, look forward to excerpts from his classic A Crisis of Saints, and short pastor’s reflections from his weekly bulletin at Our Saviour’s Church in the Holy City. June of 1943 marked a new high point in the war between … Read more
According to Aristotle, the nature of investigation and the proofs we assert depend upon the object. That is, we do not look for mathematical demonstration when the object of our study is not a mathematical object. It is even a reduction to dissolve a simple inanimate thing, like a quartz crystal, into a mathematical model, … Read more
The rapid development and expansion of digital technology is unprecedented, and its full impact on peoples all across the globe has yet to be fully understood. That’s in part, of course, because the expansion is ongoing, and its limits are unknown. The barest facts confronting the historian are astonishing. Facebook, for example, launched in 2004, … Read more
Larry Sand’s article “No Wonder Johnny (Still) Can’t Read” — written for The John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, based in Raleigh, N.C. — blames schools of education for the decline in America’s education. Education professors drum into students that they should not “drill and kill” or be the “sage on the … Read more
Among America’s amazing pantheon of founders, Patrick Henry stands out for his stirring speeches and fervent commitment to liberty, virtue, and small government. The Virginia planter, lawyer, and politician strongly denounced Great Britain’s political and economic control of the American colonies and played a leading role in the movement for independence. More controversially, Henry’s love … Read more
As a dark curtain of rain drew near, my tour group made its descent down the hill, leaving the Ethiopian town of Lalibela behind us. In the distance, rows of lush green plateaus stretched out under the thunderclouds before plummeting down to the valley. Only one thing could cause us to look away from this … Read more
If you live in a major city which happens to be blessed by immigrants from Ethiopia, you may already have been exposed to a little of that country’s fascinating culture and cuisine. One of the African nations with the oldest continuous literate culture, it is also one of the two countries that first embraced Christianity; … Read more
It is said that all the great art movements begin on the altar. So, for example, the gothic style began as the style for gothic churches and cathedrals in harmony with the liturgy. However, very quickly the architecture of mundane buildings of the period reflected that form too, adapted as appropriate to the purpose of … Read more
