I will not presume to present you with the best classical recordings of 2011, but will inflict upon you my favorites – those CDs that have found themselves most often on my player for repeat auditions simply because of the generally enjoyable nature of the music and performance. I have so many discs to recommend … Read more
For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places. (Eph., 6-12) And yet in spite of this universal world which we see, there is another world, quite as farspreading, quite as close … Read more
The following essay first appeared in the April 1996 edition of Crisis Magazine. It is part of today’s symposium on “the bourgeois spirit” as diagnosed by Dawson. See also Dawson’s essay, Catholicism and the Bourgeois Mind, and Jeffrey Tucker’s reply, In Defense of Bourgeois Civilization. Dawson wrote with two different audiences in mind. He … Read more
Many people that I have come across say that they believe in God, and might even acknowledge the need to conform to a moral code (quite how they discern it is another matter) but see no reason for ‘organised religion’, which they see as arbitrary creation of mankind. I think that the beauty of the … Read more
I once read of a Japanese writer who was annoyed that Christ had not appeared in some inn in the hills of Honshu. The logic of this complaint would mean that, to satisfy everyone’s sense of justice, Christ would have to appear in every place. He could not have been born just once in one … Read more
The following article first appeared in the December 2000 issue of Crisis Magazine. To maximize your Christmas cheer, the Crisis editors and writers put their heads together to produce this guide to the twelve days of Christmas. According to Fr. George W. Rutler, the neglect of the octave of Christmas — the eight-day extension … Read more
Let’s imagine for a moment that Christmas had never happened and that the Roman Emperor Aurelian had succeeded in establishing the feast of Sol Invictus on December 25 back in the year 274 AD. Instead of Christmas, we would have had the Feast of the Unconquered Sun. At this time of year, just after the … Read more
The title of Father Edward Oakes’ new book, Infinity Dwindled to Infancy, nicely captures the imaginative challenge posed at Christmas: the mystery of the infinite God become finite man. In truth, however, the challenge to our imaginations has less to do with the how of what the Divine Office calls this admirabile commercium [marvelous exchange] … Read more
This is the third article in a series by Prof. Esolen on the mutilation of hymn lyrics. The edition of “Worship III” referred to throughout is the Canadian one. To complete my holiday autopsy of the musical corpus left to us after forty years of tinkering, I’ll highlight how recent hymnal editors have botched … Read more
Few parishes can afford to replace or restore the lost art so many pastors ripped out on the pretext that it was “pre-conciliar.” In some cases – I’m thinking of a church in Appalachia with hand-carved relief sculptures of the local flora and fauna – the loss is irreparable. But poetry doesn’t cost a thing. … Read more
Editor’s note: This article first appeared at The American Spectator yesterday. Vaclav Havel is dead. Among other forces and powers, he is among the seven individuals most responsible for peacefully ending the Cold War; the great liberators who brought freedom and democracy. They are Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II, Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, … Read more
It is with deep gratitude that I greet the new translation of the Mass into English. At last, we will have a rendering that is theologically and linguistically precise, that captures the figurative meanings intimated in the Latin, that respects the poetic form of the prayers, that embraces the sacred, and that resonates with the … Read more
The following is an excerpt from The Bad Catholic’s Guide to Wine, Whiskey, and Song, which can arrive gift-wrapped in time for Christmas if you order today. It’s obvious that any tome whose authors hope will be carried into bars and used as a songbook must include a heartrending love song. While it’s true … Read more
Alien Nation: Common Sense About America’s Immigration Disaster Peter Brimelow, Random House, 327 pages, $16.74 Reading Alien Nation, I could not help but notice the kind of folks that author Peter Brimelow has attracted to his anti-immigrant cause: old-guard WASPs, population controllers, hard-core-environmentalists, and nativists of all stripes. These are, to put it mildly, … Read more
Do religious belief and practice affect the happiness of Europeans? In the first part of this two-part article, to answer our question we focused on the European Values Study. In this second part we deal with results from the European Social Survey. For an empirical analysis of the effect of religion on happiness, we use … Read more
The Rev. John Becker, S.J., sat at the front of the classroom, paperback in hand, glasses pushed to the end of his nose. As he spoke, he looked intently from one student to another. “This semester, I am going to teach you how to read King Lear,” he said. “It may be Shakespeare’s most … Read more
The Avro York LV 633 “Ascalon” was an air transport developed in 1942, somewhat bulky in appearance with wings mounted high in the fuselage. It was Churchill’s favorite flight model, with enough space for a conference room. The name “Ascalon” was the traditional name for the lance used by St. George to slay the dragon, … Read more
The Politically Incorrect Guide to the British Empire. H.W. Crocker III. Regnery Publishing. $19.95. 327 pp. An American Catholic looks at the British Empire with some skepticism. The Empire brought with it unquestioned benefits, but its roots in the seventeenth-century are entwined with a deep hatred of Rome and the Catholic heritage of the … Read more
On Dec. 8, 1941, Franklin Roosevelt took the rostrum before a joint session of Congress to ask for a declaration of war on Japan. A day earlier, at dawn, carrier-based Japanese aircraft had launched a sneak attack devastating the U.S. battle fleet at Pearl Harbor. Said ex-President Herbert Hoover, Republican statesman of the day, “We … Read more
In his famous introductory chapter to A Guide for the Perplexed, the economist E. F. Schumacher talked of his “perplexity” at going to Oxford, perhaps the most famous university in the world. The title of Schumacher’s book was the same as that of a book of the medieval Jewish philosopher, Moses Maimonides. The perplexity of … Read more