Finally, a leader has spoken about the real, essential differences in the struggle between the West and Islam, as it emanates from a contest within Islam itself over the most important things. With startling — indeed alarming — clarity, Pope Benedict XVI told his audience in Regensburg, Germany, in a 2006 lecture, that not only … Read more
Some years ago, my kids got a computer game called Myst. It‘s a very curious game — there are no instructions, no rules, and no commentary offered at the beginning. You find yourself plunked down into a strange environment on a mysterious island. You don‘t know where you are or why you‘re there. As you … Read more
Sane people never ask, “Did Michaelangelo cause the statue of David, or was it his chisel? Did Shakespeare cause Hamlet, or was it his pen? Choose!” But for some reason, when the subject turns to evolution, many fundamentalists, both atheist and Christian, completely forget that a thing can have primary and secondary causes. Instead, they … Read more
It is clear that we are experiencing today a period of intense and critical struggle in the advancement of the culture of life in our nation. The administration of our federal government openly and aggressively follows a secularist agenda. While it may employ religious language and even invoke the name of God, in fact, … Read more
Our Lord teaches us to pray that God’s will be done “on earth as it is in Heaven.” But I sometimes fancy that we (and I know for certain that I) have seldom given any thought to what that means. I think that, in part, it’s because we don’t quite know what to make … Read more
Crisis Magazine music critic Robert R. Reilly sat down with noted writer, political thinker, and Georgetown University professor Rev. James V. Schall, S.J., to talk about the life of the mind, the future of the West, and lessons learned over a long career in education. ♦ ♦ ♦ Robert R. Reilly: What is the … Read more
In his Ethics, Aristotle tells us that not every action is a mean between two extremes — too much and too little. Some names indicate what is always base. He gives examples: “spite, shamelessness, envy, among feelings; adultery, theft, murder, among actions.” Such actions are unworthy. “Hence in doing these things we can never be … Read more
I married into a guy’s-guy family. War stories, fart jokes, sex tales, and harrowing narratives involving body parts, souped-up vehicles, and confrontations with law enforcement dominated the decidedly not-polite dinner conversation. This was all new and often entertaining to me, coming from a household of enforced manners, feigned politeness, imposed goodwill, and repressed aggressions. Both … Read more
I am reading St. Augustine’s Confessions these days, for the second or third time. The whole thing is a great antidote for all that is confused and squalid about our own epoch, but more particularly for the sloth and folly that marks one’s own inner being. The book itself is an astonishing thing. You … Read more
In this Crisis Magazine classic, philosopher Peter Kreeft says that if you know what an apple is, you know enough to recognize the truth of the pro-life argument. I doubt there are many readers here who are pro-choice. Why, then, do I write an argument against abortion? Why preach to the choir? Preaching … Read more
Despite the evidence of my implausible last name — customer-service staff refuse to believe it, force me to repeat it two and three times, and sometimes even argue, “It can’t be spelled like that!” — the provenance of my Catholic faith is Irish American, courtesy of my catechetical mom. Whatever specifically Croatian quirks dad had … Read more
This virtue business is a puzzler. If picking up the tab for a raging alcoholic, or keeping one’s gambling-addict grandma in bingo cards, doesn’t add up to Liberality, what does? Isn’t the New Testament full of admonitions like “Give till it hurts,” and “It’s 10 p.m. Do you know where your children are?” It’s … Read more
In this Crisis Magazine classic, Edward T. Oakes, S.J. looks at the troubling tendency of theologians to abandon the historic faith. In 1968, a professor of theology at the University of Regensburg wrote a modestly sized treatise on the Apostles’ Creed called Introduction to Christianity. Its impact, however, was anything but modest, for … Read more
Last week, I wrote a little piece on the ways in which the various Protestantisms filter the sometimes ambiguous text of Scripture through various semi-permeable membranes in order to accept the bits of the Catholic Tradition they approve of while a) removing those things they dislike and b) stapling on those human ideas and notions … Read more
In this Crisis Magazine classic, Benjamin Wiker revisits the strange history of belief in extraterrestrials and considers what impact their existence might have on Christianity. We tend to consider speculation about extraterrestrials to be a recent phenomenon, a task forced on us by the scientific knowledge we’ve gained during the last century. It’s … Read more
A certain mindset that postmodernity finds very appealing identifies purity with sterility. To be pure is, in this view, to be uncontaminated, germ-free, barren, scrubbed, metallic. This mindset (which is actually very ancient) tends to think of “pure” spirituality as a spirituality unsoiled by contact with grosser elements such as matter and, most especially, … Read more
During the persecution of Christians during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, the Roman prefect Rusticus was frustrated by the serene equanimity of the Christian convert Justin, a Platonic philosopher. The Romans considered Christianity a supserstitio parva (perverse superstition) and classified its morality as immodica (immoderate) for, among other things, refusing to abort the unborn … Read more
Today’s Beatitude — “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Mt 5:5) — continues Jesus’ tradition of transmuting lead into gold. Just as nobody wants to be poor and nobody wants to mourn, so nobody wants to be “meek.” That’s because we think of the meek as doormats and dartboards. We assume … Read more
In this Crisis Magazine classic, Benjamin Wiker argues that not only does evil fail to disprove the existence of God, but without God, we would be unable to recognize evil. As an advocate of the Intelligent Design movement, I’m very often confronted with the following rather pointed criticism: “Well, if the world is designed, then … Read more
Here’s what passes for historical scholarship in mainstream culture — from the BBC: Cleopatra, the last Egyptian Pharaoh, renowned for her beauty, was part African, says a BBC team which believes it has found her sister’s tomb…. [R]emains of the queen’s sister Princess Arsinoe, found in Ephesus, Turkey, indicate that her mother had an … Read more