With a sound strategy, discipline, and a little luck, corralling your kids at Mass will win a decisive victory for the souls of your children, albeit after suffering severe casualties in the first waves.
Early on in the essay, “Is a Sense of Humor a Virtue?,” John Lippitt asks the question, “Could it be, then, that exposure to a ‘virtuous’ sense of humor can make a difference to my character, and therefore be a useful tool in moral education?” At first glance it may appear self-evident that if one … Read more
All the good comedians are liberal. That’s dogma, of course, for liberals—but even conservatives seem to accept it, submitting to their stereotype as grouchy and humorless. But it’s not true. For the best comedian of our time, in my humble opinion, is what I would call, not a liberal nor a conservative, but a traditionalist: … Read more
Every era has its own brand of humor. Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic operas were the toast of Victorian London; the Marx Brothers’ buffoonery left 1930s audiences roaring with laughter in their theater seats, and Brian Regan’s honest, contagious humor has entertained us for nearly two decades. Satire, that darker strain of humor, is almost always … 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
The following conversation took place between two friends of mine at a Piggly-Wiggly in Pumpkin Center (just north of Baptist), Louisiana. For the longest time, whenever I’d drive down I-10 between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, I’d see the green road sign that said “Pumpkin Center” over “Baptist,” which stuck in my mind as the … Read more
Not long after we moved onto our country property, I thought I’d amble over and see Fred Number Two. We had just bought the property from Fred Number one, and I thought it best to get to know both Freds, since they were our new neighbors and being neighborly was, of course, one of the … Read more