One of the classic texts written in defense of political and economic freedom is Frederic Bastiat’s The Law. I remember having the book pressed on me as a high school senior by a smart, nerdy-looking libertarian who worked at the Laissez-Faire Bookstore in New York, and I wish that I’d read it then. It would … Read more
Some people become Catholic because the Church is a communion of sinners and slobs who are losers, oddballs, factory rejects, and broken dunderheads who can’t tell their butt from a hole in the ground and who have messed up their lives so badly that they know only God can save them. They don’t know from … Read more
Your Holiness: Forgive me for taking so long to write this letter. As you well know from your many years of service in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, since the late 1960s it has been fashionable for theologians to write open letters critical of the doctrine and discipline of the Catholic Church. … Read more
It was not so easy for a Catholic in the early 1980s to advocate for a free society. While much of the nation welcomed the conservative shift President Reagan brought to U.S. policy, the American Catholic bishops were not among them. Those Catholics whose common-sense politics leaned right found themselves isolated in their larger faith … Read more
The headline of a report on a recent survey summed up its findings: “Capitalism Against Christianity, Americans Believe.” Is that good news or bad news? What should Catholics think? Does Catholic social teaching imply opposition to capitalism? The answers you get to those questions would no doubt differ dramatically depending on whom you ask. Although … Read more
Most of us, unless we have been steeping ourselves in Greek drama lately, will draw a blank when we come upon that word. Themis. Not really a household word nowadays. But it ought to be. It bespeaks, really, the whole shape of life for the Greeks. For them, it constituted the touchstone by which a … Read more
One nice thing about being Catholic is that when a dimestore Origenist (who is pretty certain nobody’s going to Hell) goes up against dimestore Calvinists (who are certain they know just exactly who is in Hell), you don’t have to feel as though TIME magazine is arbitrating a dispute that never ever ever occurred to Christians before. Just … Read more
John Paul II was a man who left an indelible impression. My first personal encounter with him was in Phoenix, Arizona, when he visited the Native American Catholic community during his 1987 trip. As master of ceremonies for the event, I met the Holy Father on the stage and held the book of prayers for … Read more
I began my seminary studies by flying to Rome the same day Pope John Paul II returned from his first apostolic visit to the United States. Some published reports implied that I had been piled into his craft, but I was on the flight behind his, and I definitely had not been kidnapped. The early … Read more
Strange as it may seem, I’ve been vaguely worried about the beatification on May 1 of a man with whom I was in close conversation for over a decade and to the writing of whose biography I dedicated 15 years of my own life. My worries don’t have to do with allegations of a “rushed” … Read more
C. S. Lewis remarks somewhere that he heard a woman on a bus once complain that the Christians couldn’t leave well enough alone. Now they were even trying to drag their beliefs into Christmas. I think of that as I watch postmoderns (a people radically innocent of historical knowledge or perspective, for whom the Age … Read more
As we enter Holy Week, it is good to focus our minds on the matter that occupied Jesus in His final hours before His Passion, that we might imitate the mind of Christ. Therefore, I thought we might take a little time and look at what is called the Last Supper Discourse in the Gospel … Read more
As a tenured professor at a state school with a conventional pension plan, I have been very interested in the recent labor unrest in Wisconsin. Throw in the facts that my grandfather was a local politician in Wisconsin and that I have a first cousin in that state who is an elementary teacher, and the … Read more
In the fall of 2007, I spent a week in Spain, giving lectures, meeting with Spanish Catholic leaders, and making a hair-raising climb up several hundred scaffolding stairs to the top of Antoni Gaudi’s Basilica of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona — preceded by Stanislaw Cardinal Dziwisz, Pope John Paul II’s longtime secretary, who was … Read more
My father and mother, ages 88 and 86, recently entered the Catholic Church. Like most things in life, their entrance could never have been imagined or expected, even ten years ago. Yet, like all things in life, their conversion was providential, and, when it happened, it seemed utterly natural. How natural it is, that with … Read more
The statement was pompously worded, expressing regret about what was to follow. Alas, it said, weeping crocodile tears, it gave no pleasure to present this statement to the public, but it had to be done. Pope John Paul II, it declared, was a terrible pope and should not be called blessed. With such an opening, … Read more
I often wonder, writing here, what possible expertise I have to offer. I’m not a theologian, so my take on deeper issues is by necessity secondhand. My knowledge of Catholic history is wide-ranging but thin — and focused disconcertingly on religious orders that brew beer, make wine, or invented distinctive liqueurs. (Surely there’s much to … Read more
Continuity and change are complementary principles in the Catholic Church, just as they are generally. In a living entity, it’s impossible to have one without the other. Continuity is a principle of identity. It’s what keeps a person or thing the same person or thing in the face of passing time and shifting circumstance. Change … Read more
One of the ways we mark Lent is through almsgiving, which doesn’t just mean writing checks but engaging in all the Works of Mercy recommended by the Church. One of those that has never really appealed to me is “visiting the prisoner.” Maybe I’m wimpier or more worldly than most of you, but I’m daunted … Read more
In a recent speech to the Royal Society of Arts in London, Sir David Attenborough said there’s a “strange silence” about overpopulation. Journalist Bonnie Erbe apparently believes Attenborough statements should be shouted from the rooftops, so she wrote an opinion piece for Scripps Howard News Service about it: Sir David said there needed to be … Read more