Rome Is Falling! Rome Is Falling!
The next papal election will be more important than the next presidential election.
Amazon’s New Co-Headquarters: A Cautionary Tale
It seems to be the billion-dollar question: where will Jeff Bezos, the Emperor of Amazon, establish his new headquarters (to go along with its current capital city, Seattle)? Whenever I hear this question, I’m always reminded and amazed by two geographical oddities about the Roman Empire: first, that in the fourth century it picked up … Read more
Timely Film Rome, Open City is Re-released
London just witnessed the release of a newly restored version of Rome, Open City (Roma città aperta). Roberto Rossellini’s Italian Neo-Realist classic emerged from the smashed debris of what was left of the Eternal City as the German armies retreated and the Allies slowly crept towards it. Watching the movie today it lacks none of … Read more
The Apostle of the Upper Midwest: Samuel Mazzuchelli
A traveler in Wisconsin need not stray far from the Interstate before he gets a good sense of the wild and uncut territory that greeted the explorers, traders, and missionary priests who first brought European civilization and its Faith to the American Midwest. To the freshly ordained Samuel Mazzuchelli, O.P., the untamed Wisconsin Frontier of … Read more
St. Peter and St. Paul, the Fathers of Great Rome
Peter and Paul, the Fathers of great Rome, Now sitting in the Senate of the skies, One by the cross, the other by the sword, Sent to their thrones on high, to Life’s eternal prize. Elpis, the wife of Boethius, sings the praises of St. Peter and St. Paul in her Latin poem, Decora lux … Read more
The Anatomy of Sloth
Among the capital sins, sloth easily captures the pride of place as being the least offensive. Great, notorious heroes of lust, anger, greed, pride, and the other capital sins will easily come to mind—Don Juan, Achilles, Midas, Satan, etc. But who would we characterize as a hero of sloth? Nero, for fiddling while Rome burned? … Read more
Building the New Rome
In 2005 I spent three months in Rome. In some ways I have never left. Perhaps it sounds like a commonplace to say that I “left part of myself” in the Eternal City. But the fact is, I did. I returned to Rome once more, in the spring of 2007, when I proposed to my … Read more
Bring Me The Head of Maria Stuarda
The thought of a new book, from a proverbially establishmentarian imprint, on Elizabeth I’s spymaster is not one that immediately gladdens the heart. Anyone who has actually been expected to spend time in modern England – rather than simply viewing it through a Downton-Abbey-generated haze – knows perfectly well that English anti-Catholicism has reached during … Read more
Jean-Baptiste Lamy, the Apostle of Santa Fe
The man chosen by Blessed Pius IX to restore the Faith to the troubled American Southwest was the Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Lamy, who died on the 13th of February in the year of Grace 1888.
The Church that Converted Khans
The Assyrian Church of the East, an apostolic Church found primarily in Iraq today, cannot boast of any attraction as spectacular as the Ark of the Covenant, the pride of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. However, it does boast The Book of Protection, a collection of prayers and charms that they say the angels gave … Read more
The Other Successors of Peter: The Patriarchs of Antioch
Gregory III Laham, the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch of Antioch, has joked that if the Apostle Peter had just stayed put, he himself would be the earthly head of the Catholic Church today. For tradition has it that St. Peter headed the Church of Antioch, where “the disciples were first called Christians” (Acts 11:26), for … Read more
Subsidiarity on Earth and in Heaven
Several years ago I attended a lecture at Marquette by John Allen, the Rome correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, in which he addressed the stereotype of the Vatican passing down commands to be implemented by 5000 bishops and subordinate clerics, as well as the various religious orders. He dissipated the stereotype with a depiction … Read more
Requiem for the Third See of Christendom
Egypt today is the site of a persecution of the Church on a scale unseen in Western Europe since the darkest days of the French Revolution; the Coptic Church is fighting for its life under vicious and escalating attacks from Muslims. A Muslim Brotherhood government is coming to power that promises to be more hostile. … Read more
Proceeding Toward Reunion at Last
This article originally appeared in the April 2000 issue of Crisis Magazine. The “dialogue of love” between Rome and the Orthodox Churches that offered so much promise after nine centuries of ecclesial estrangement seems to be running out of breath as we enter the third Christian millennium. A dramatic breakthrough is needed to restore the … Read more
Must the Roman Curia be Italian?
Although he’s not very well known in the U.S., save among members of the Sant’Egidio community (of which he’s the founding father), Andrea Riccardi is a major figure in the Catholic Church in Italy: a historian of the papacy, a commentator on all things Catholic, and a player in various ecclesiastical dramas. Most recently, according … Read more
Arrivederci, Roma
Will popular democracy bring down the New World Order? A fair question. For Western peoples are growing increasingly reluctant to accept the sacrifices that the elites are imposing upon them to preserve that New World Order. Political support for TARP, to rescue the financial system after the Lehman Brothers collapse, is being held against … Read more
Dissenting Catholics’ Modernity Problem
Judging from the hundreds of thousands of Germans who attended and watched Pope Benedict XVI’s September trip to his homeland (not to mention the tsunami of commentaries sparked by his Bundestag address), the pope’s visit was — once again — a success. And, once again, it was also an occasion for self-identified dissenting Catholics to … Read more
Whatever Happened to Palestrina?
A German opera called Palestrina, composed by Hans Pfitzner during the First World War, portrayed the 16th-century composer as the savior of Catholic Church music. Set during the Council of Trent, the opera had the council fathers on the verge of banning polyphonic music (many voices singing various melodies at variance) from the Mass. Then … Read more
Summer Flood
The musical levees have broken and I am inundated with new CD releases. In these brief reviews, I will also be playing catch-up on some overlooked items of merit. I shall proceed chronologically, which means we begin with my favorite period of music, the Classical era. The CPO label (777 526-2) has released a disc … Read more
A New Bridge across the Tiber
The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham has now been established in England. By Easter this year, three bishops, sixty priests, and nearly one thousand lay people had left the Church of England to be received into the Catholic Church. Archbishop Donald Wuerl is working with interested parties to establish the ordinariate in the United … Read more