I’m ambivalent about that most common pro-life argument: that, because life begins at conception, to abort a pregnancy is to commit murder. That’s not to say I don’t believe it’s true. On the contrary: it’s not only true, it’s obviously true. It’s one of the few points upon which credible scientists and ethicists can agree. … Read more
What would Newman say about the Pachamamas? That’s not actually a question which anyone who studied Newman carefully would ask. It reflects a lack of understanding of the workings of practical intelligence, which Newman took great pains to delineate—as if one could take a proof text out of Newman, and that would give you the … Read more
The Synod of Bishops on the Amazon is off to an ominous start. Each day, as more bizarre, jarring, and revolutionary developments emerge, I keep coming back to a line from Cormac Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor: “When the cardinals elected Bergoglio they did not know what a Pandora’s box they were opening.” Shortly before the synod started, … Read more
Editor’s note: this article originally appeared in the January 1992 print edition of Crisis. It has been edited for brevity. I shudder when I hear God called “Mother”—and so do many other Catholics along with me. But what is the reason for this reaction? Is it irrational, or is it justified? Is it mere traditionalism, or good … Read more
The religious right has often been looked down upon by many Americans involved in the political scene. For them, it shouldn’t exist. According to the secular liberal tradition, the public square is supposed to be value-neutral. Any religious intrusion into political matters is to be discouraged. The secular left is especially fearful of mixing politics … Read more
Winter is the season for readers. Bitter cold and polar darkness drive people beneath quilts and by hearthsides where the book is a quintessential commodity and companion, its pages aglow in the blended light of fire and frost. Whether engaged silently or aloud, a wintry volume should occupy every end-table in rooms where chilling temperatures … Read more
As Halloween approaches, the debate over whether Catholics should join in the celebrations has reignited. Many claim it is a harmless holiday for children that Catholics may freely participate in. Others affirm that it has now descended into dark regions with the return of pagan and Satanic imagery; it should thus be off limits. And … Read more
There was a time, not in the hoary past, when tattoos were an indulgence of louche members of the demi-monde, as observed by Alexandre Dumas. They seem to have become respectable as our culture erases the borderline between the demi-monde and the monde entier. Priests have become somewhat accustomed to pious communicants with arms totally … Read more
It is a well-known element of Christian tradition: early missionaries repurposed or replaced established pagan rituals, artifacts, and places in their effort to convert the local people. There are some very famous instances of this: Santa Maria Sopra Minerva is a beautiful Roman church built upon the ruins of a pagan temple to the goddess … Read more
Well before Hillary Clinton put a national spotlight on the Alt-Right with her “deplorables” speech, I was addressing the then-obscure movement and what it signifies for modern society. In August 2010 Chronicles carried “Where The Demons Dwell: The Antichrist Right,” an article wherein I considered the Alt-Right’s Nietzschean side. A later issue of the same … Read more
Lord Dunsany has written a charming short story about two “local gods” obliged to share the same temple. Every Tuesday the priests enter the inner sanctum, praise and sacrifice to the elder idol, Chu-bu, until one day they bring a fresh-carved “usurper,” Sheemish. “There is none but Chu-bu … there is also Sheemish,” they intone. … Read more
In a post-Christian world, ancient wisdom is all the more impressive. It isn’t difficult to see why Dante referred to the ancients as “noble pagans.” Today the noble pagans have been supplanted by militant technocrats. Perhaps our touchscreen techno-culture atrophies our imaginative faculty, which C.S. Lewis believed was the seedbed of faith. We have little … Read more
“After remaining quiescent for centuries in the narrow confines of the lands around the Baltic, the peoples of the North suddenly poured forth in a wave of conquering expansion… They had attacked Constantinople and Pisa and North Persia and Moslem Spain, while their settlements and conquests embraced Greenland and Iceland and Russia, as well as … Read more
When the press falsely quoted Cardinal Raymond Burke last May as stating that the Irish were “worse” than the pagans for having passed a referendum recognizing same-sex “marriage,” they missed an opportunity to offer a valuable lesson in history. What His Eminence actually said—namely, that while the “pagans may have tolerated homosexual behaviors, they never … Read more
I picture him as a tall Texan, his outsize appearance easily eclipsing everything in sight, save only the immense shrine that he and a busload of tourists have come to Rome to see. And then, throwing up his hand at the end of an exhausting exploration of the world’s most beautiful basilica, I hear him … Read more