Almost five hundred years after his death, William Shakespeare remains one of the most important figures in human history. Standing shoulder to shoulder with Homer and Dante, he is part of the triumvirate of literary giants who straddle the centuries as permanent witnesses of the permanent things. It is, therefore, gratifying that modern scholarship is … Read more
Why is it that we often feel disturbed in a modern art museum? Surrounded by artifacts of our own culture, we should feel right at home. But many of these unrecognizable and fragmented images fail to communicate the true meaning of the human person. If, as Chesterton put it, “Art is the signature of man,” … Read more
Things in Heaven and Earth: Exploring the Supernatural, Harold Fickett, ed., Paraclete, 1998, 230 pages, $14. We are now living through a third Great Awakening. It is, of course, a far cry from anything Jonathan Edwards could have imagined. The television show, Brimstone, depicts a damned soul released from Hell with the mission of … Read more
Those prestigious publishers at Simon and Schuster selected All Saints Day to unleash the book world’s latest attempt at mocking Christianity. It’s called The Last Testament, by God. The author is David Javerbaum, a top writer for 11 years for The Daily Show on Comedy Central, perhaps America’s leading religion-hating TV network. Is it any … Read more
As Halloween approaches, our thoughts turn to horror movies — at least mine do, since I am a Halloween baby and have a disordered soul. I have followed this genre avidly and find that it contains some interesting and unexpected messages beyond Boo! While working for the Reagan administration, I was once dispatched on a … Read more
Forty years ago, the sexual revolution broke through the last barricades of Victorian propriety. A whole generation drifted toward moral anarchy in its fitful pursuit of sexual liberation. At the end of the day, the casualties of this revolution surround us—AIDS patients, aborted children, and single mothers. But only recently have the intellectual elite come … Read more
New Orleans. Wet bodies press close in the pit. Their faces red from the daylong parades, the tourists have come to usher in Mardi Gras with New Orleans musical royalty. Like the mosquitoes outside thirsting for a fresh taste of life, the drunk, the sober, and the merely tipsy crowd the House of Blues stage. … Read more
A conservative’s task in society is “to preserve a particular people, living in a particular place during a particular time.” Jack Hunter, in a review of this writer’s new book, Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025? thus summarizes Russell Kirk’s view of the duty of the conservative to his country. Kirk, the … Read more
The career of Frank Capra coincided with the golden age of Hollywood, and many of his films are recognized as classics. Still, most critics seem not to have noticed that Capra’s work reflects a profoundly Catholic vision of reality, a vision framed by the Sermon on the Mount. Because his cinema does not have an … Read more
Colson’s Law is named for the man I learned it from: Chuck Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries. It is one of the fundamental laws of human history. It has always been true, and it always will be true, unless human nature itself changes in its very essence. It is the law of four “C’s”: … Read more
Karl Marx said religion in general — and Christianity in particular — is nothing more than an opiate for the masses. How do we know Marx is not right? The mere fact that people around the world worship a divine being doesn’t establish the existence or non-existence of any such thing — nor does it … Read more
There was a time in the not-so-distant past when the young Catholic was obliged to begin any defense of the Church with the phrase, “I know the world thinks Catholicism is old-fashioned, legalistic, and otherwise an oppressive force upon the youthful, budding mind, but in actual fact…” Only then could he move into his apologia, having … Read more
On February 7, 2001, in the Camden Town district of London, I stopped in front of a formidable old house surrounded by a gated wall, pressed the button next to an intercom, identified myself, and was instructed to enter. Inside I was warmly greeted by Anna Haycraft, better known as the writer and Catholic commentator, … Read more
Two volumes recently published by Encounter Books address key issues in the New Evangelization. The first, Marcello Pera’s Why We Must Call Ourselves Christians, is another effort by a distinguished public intellectual to call our civilization back to its foundational senses. Pera, a philosopher of science, is also an Italian legislator who served for several … Read more
Among those who have been disappointed by President Barack Obama, none is likely to end up so painfully disappointed as those who saw his election as being, in itself and in its consequences, a movement toward a “post-racial society.” Like so many other expectations that so many people projected onto this little-known man who suddenly … Read more
A chill in the air, crackling leaves, and a roaring fireplace put me in mind of chamber music for some reason — perhaps because it is an interior art. Is it the cold that prepares one for a period of introspection? Chamber music is the art of introspection in sound. In any case, it is … Read more
Last year, as I walked out of the theater after a showing of the 1947 gangster flick Brighton Rock, one of the men behind me had a question for his companion. “There was a lot of,” and he tried to put it delicately, “Catholic stuff in that. I mean…is that normal?” Both the 1947 film … Read more
Two weeks into the NFL season, ESPN ran a Sunday morning special exploring why the third-string quarterback of the Denver Broncos, Tim Tebow, had become the most polarizing figure in American sports — more polarizing than trash-talking NBA behemoths; more polarizing than foul-mouthed Serena Williams; more polarizing than NFL all-stars who father numerous children by … Read more
In the Teutonic gloom spreading from Tunisia to Stalingrad, the Luftwaffe engineered a glimmer of fresh resiliency with the inaugural test flight of a Messerschmitt Me 262 jet that reached 520 mph on May 22. In those same hours, Stalin was dissolving the Third international, or Comintern, on the first anniversary of the formal Soviet … Read more
The image of Christ in the visual arts is a history of reverence, wonder, and controversy. Art historically, one can trace the depiction of Christ from an icon of power and transcendental remoteness to a depiction — especially prevalent in modern times — of Christ as a man of flesh and blood, seemingly more human … Read more
