As my dogged readers know, this year I’ve been fitfully trying to work on a book about the vices and virtues. It has morphed a few times, as projects will, but took its final form as The Bad Catholic’s Guide to the Seven Deadly Sins. I meet with my publishers today to design a cover–which … Read more
Nietzsche’s aphorism, “The Last Christian died on the Cross,” has several interpretations. It is a cry of disappointment: The Christians who followed Christ did not live up to His example. Nietzsche was broken-hearted, even scandalized, by the failure of Christians to live as they ought. He wanted to be like the One who died on … Read more
As we noted last week, the Catholic tradition of catechesis has tended to break up Exodus 20:17 into two commandments. The ninth commandment bids us not to covet our neighbor’s spouse; the focus of the tenth commandment is on coveting his stuff: You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet … Read more
“The Holy Father should not be coming to the Holy Land without visiting Gaza.” The bitterness in his voice was obvious as the professor at Bethlehem University talked to me about Pope Benedict XVI’s visit next month. I found that his attitude is the rule, rather than the exception, among Palestinian Christians in the Holy … Read more
In this Crisis Magazine classic, Mark Shea lays out the case for the bodily resurrection of Jesus. You may be surprised how strong it is. “Jesus came to give us moral guidance, and to prove he meant business, he let himself be killed and seen after death, so we would listen and be good.” Not … Read more
Palestinian Christians are wondering aloud whether the upcoming visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the Holy Land will bring greater media attention to their dwindling numbers. They fear that, at the top, the pope’s agenda will be dominated by his continuing effort to smooth the ruffled feathers of Muslims (after his2006 Regensburg speech) … Read more
As we come to the Ninth Commandment, we again arrive in disputed territory. As you will recall, the Ten Commandments can be and have been split up differently so as to yield ten and not eleven commandments. Some Protestants break apart the First Commandment (yielding what I call the 1.5 Commandment against graven images). The … Read more
Four years ago, I was in the hospital, laboring to deliver our seventh child. My husband paced the floors, and a television tuned to Fox News blared from a corner of the room. Terri Schiavo was dying. And the world was watching. I watched, too. Between contractions, waves of nausea, and breathing exercises, … Read more
Lent is moving toward its object. At a certain age, one realizes that each Lenten season is its own unique season. No two seasons should be the same, as — please God! — we are not the same. This year I spent part of Lent in the Burgundian village of Vézelay. Where the basilica stands … Read more
In this Crisis Magazine classic, veteran journalist Sandra Miesel looks into the curious death of Pope John Paul I… including the conspiratorial claims that he was murdered. He barely made it to the bathroom… it was hard to stand up. He clutched the sink and squinted painfully against the bright lights. Fumbling with … Read more
It is a curious fact that the same book of Exodus that informs us of the command, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (20:16) begins with the story of a good solid practical lie: Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and … Read more
In this Crisis Magazine classic, Tom Hoopes outlines four strategies for beating proponents of the Culture of Death at their own game. From the perspective of the Catholic Church, the culture war can look more like a culture siege — a one-sided contest pitting the attacking villains against a peace-loving Church. Or worse, … Read more
As I was saying to an old friend the other day, as we passed a crowded hamburger franchise: "Look at all the rugged individualists, lining up for their Big Macs! Look at all those freethinkers!" It was a doubly uncharitable remark. First, our whole society has not gone over to dogmatic atheist fundamentalism. … Read more
"You shall not steal," says Exodus 20:15. Once again, the Decalogue faces us with an injunction that seems like common sense (and is), but which is also fraught with all sorts of difficulties and distinctions. Consider, for instance, the fact that a Catholic writer like me has the obligation to never write an … Read more
I wasn’t a particularly devout teenager. I knew it was important to go to Sunday Mass, but I honestly found it rather dull at times. So it was tremendously satisfactory when, one Sunday, there was high drama. A man got up from the congregation during the priest’s sermon and shouted at him. From where … Read more
For the past few years, the buzz about Rev. John I. Jenkins, the president of Notre Dame since 2005, has been very positive. In spite of his refusal to ban The Vagina Monologues from the campus, Father Jenkins was viewed as strengthening the Catholic identity of the nation’s most beloved Catholic institution. … Read more
Is the sacrament of penance in crisis? One often hears that claim today, but it needs a closer look. My guess is that there’s a crisis all right — but not exactly this one. Yes, Catholic confessions have plummeted in the last 40 years. But who would care to say that the awareness … Read more
Matthew Arnold was the son of Dr. Thomas Arnold, the legendary headmaster of Rugby, who many decades after his death had the misfortune to be one of the four figures held up to ridicule in Lytton Strachey’s landmark book, Eminent Victorians. (The other three were Florence Nightingale, Cardinal Manning, and General "Chinese" Gordon). Matthew, … Read more
In this Crisis Magazine classic, Rev. Michael Enright outlines the features of a truly Catholic church building… and no, churches-in-the-round don’t qualify. In about 10 A.D. the Roman writer Vitrivus wrote that there are three qualities for good building, “venustas, firmitas et utilitas” — delight, firmness, and utility. What happens when these criteria … Read more
I meant to spend Lent reflecting on the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy, but events have come vast and various. Between the collapse of our economy, the crisis of a major religious order, and the radioactive fallout from the pope’s own work of mercy toward Traditionalists, it has been tough to hunker down. Sex … Read more