culture

The Well-Sheltered Catholic

In 1971, a group of distinguished individuals — artists, writers, musicians, intellectuals — sent an appeal to Pope Paul VI requesting that he preserve the classical Roman Rite of the Mass. This group, composed of Catholics and non-Catholics alike, had as their aim not the maintenance of a particular theological mode of worship so much … Read more

Of Female Bondage

Here’s something strange. Just when you thought women had cast off the last of their chains, it turns out that they are rushing headlong back into bondage. Female enthusiasm for a sadomasochistic “romance” called Fifty Shades of Greyhas seen tens of thousands of suburban mums downloading copies from Amazon and now snapping up hard copies … Read more

The Culture Behind the Cartagena Scandal

President Obama has called them “knuckleheads”.  A CNN columnist says the actions of a dozen Secret Service agents in Colombia amounted to “stupidity”. United States Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the episode, also involving military personnel, was a “huge disappointment”. The official message seems to be that consorting with prostitutes in Colombia while on … Read more

Two Cheers for Hollywood

When it comes to corporate social responsibility Hollywood occasionally gives us cause to cheer. For example, the 2006 film Blood Diamond successfully drew attention to modern day slavery and exploitation in Africa, which is usually funded by blood diamonds – diamonds mined in conflict countries and often used to finance brutal wars and dictatorships. Or … Read more

The Speed of Change in the Republic of Rights

“I grew up in Kansas. When I began my book Render Unto Caesar in 2006, I had in my mind the America I always knew—or thought I knew. But that America, I admit, has been passing for fifty years, and probably longer.” —Charles Chaput, September 2010 The Catholic thinkers, in the past century or so, … Read more

Zombies, Zelda, and the Natural Law

Rescuing the princess. Punishing unjust oppressors. Liberating a people from slavery. International gamers across the world live out these fantasies on a daily basis. These fantasies don’t make themselves, however. Grown men and women have to sit down at computers and think them up. Most video games these days have some kind of pre-packaged narrative … Read more

Kuehnelt-Leddihn and American Conservatism

Let us begin with what is most excellent and lasting in the work of the late Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn—his profound understanding of, and unyielding opposition to, the Left.  According to the Austrian-born polymath, the Left has its roots planted firmly in democracy.  In its modern form, that object of near worship owed its birth to … Read more

The Catholic “Ghetto” as a Last Resort

The Department of Health and Human Services has mandated that even health plans of religiously affiliated employers must include the coverage of contraception, abortifacient drugs, and sterilization. Hundreds of Catholic hospitals, colleges and universities, and social service organizations will have one of three choices: Cave in and accept what is morally repugnant; Face heavy fines … Read more

The Age of the Laity…or the Latte?

So what will it be? A grande Latte… or Western Civilization? A scone with that… or the meat of doctrine? An extra shot of espresso… or the survival of families? A Moccachino… or the Mystical Body of Christ? Today, the price is the same.  Tomorrow the terms change.  Tomorrow there may be silence, apart from the … Read more

The Strange Happenings at the Unreal Hotel

Many are the strange things going on in the Unreal Hotel. In Room 101, a man and woman are lying together, and in more ways than one. In Room 102, it is a man and a man. In Room 103, a fellow named George, who has grown weary of his life, is meeting surreptitiously with … Read more

The Pope Gets Political

Evangelium Vitae – the “Gospel of Life” – is a warning and a plea to the people of the United States and other developed nations. The warning is that ours is fast becoming a culture of death. The plea is for us to join together in building a new culture of life. Pope John Paul … Read more

Beating the Competition

Business leaders are blaming the education system for the loss of jobs offshore. But aren’t they forgetting that other institution that turns out good workers?

Should Our Kids Be Happy?

A British media personality has pricked the country’s happiness bubble by declaring that she does not want her kids to be “happy”. Kirsty Young, a Scot with two young daughters and two teenage step-children (and a husband who is a millionaire), said in an interview that it was impossible to be happy all the time … Read more

Modern Kids: Raised by Wolves

Digital textbooks. That is the latest idea from the White House for lifting the performance of American schools — a strategy on which Korea and other countries are already ahead. Something certainly needs to be done; a new report from the Harvard Business School identifies the education system from kindergarten through to the end of … Read more

To Follow the “Way of Beauty”

In 1999, Pope John Paul II wrote a Letter to Artists. In this he called for a “new epiphany of beauty” and for a “renewed relationship between Church and culture” in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council. A “new epiphany” will not just happen by itself.  This article aims to set out a basis … Read more

In Defense of Christopher Dawson

I would like to present a qualified defense of Christopher Dawson and his essay, “Catholicism and the Bourgeois Mind.” Jeffrey Tucker, John Zmirak and Fr. John Peter Pham each mount a strong defense of the bourgeois and the world they created, and Tucker in particular argues that thinkers like Dawson are dangerously reactionary world when … Read more

T.S. Eliot as Mentor

The following essay is reprinted with the permission of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute from The Intercollegiate Review.   T. S. Eliot was indisputably the greatest poet writing in English in the twentieth century. He was also the most revolutionary Anglophone literary critic since Samuel Johnson, and the most influential religious thinker in the Anglican tradition … Read more

Priests: “Resolve” to Love the Laity

The Church was also in need of change, but only to the extent that she needed to look again at how she could most effectively change the world. We have allowed a missionary council to be domesticated. The greatest failure of the post-Vatican II Church is the failure to call forth and to form a … Read more

Warnings of the End

Mark Steyn, After America, Regnery, $23. Patrick J. Buchanan, Suicide of a Superpower, Thomas Dunne, $22.   A good prophet of doom, or at least a good-hearted prophet, always hopes that he is wrong. The same might be said of persecuted prophets, even of weeping prophets, as in the ancient tradition of Jeremiah. For that … Read more

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