Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón—called “Pedrito” by his supporters and “the Handsome” by himself—has gotten the Halloween season off to an early start by disentombing the body of former Spanish head of state Francisco Franco. Although traditionally a time to show respect for the dead in the Hispanic world, in this as in so … Read more
“Woe to the world because of scandals. For it must be that scandals come: but woe to that man by whom the scandal cometh” (Mt. 18:7). Once again we must endure a period of shame in the Church, much to the pain of all believers. Our Lord had predicted the inevitability of scandals, so we … Read more
Insofar as Americans know anything of the Spanish Civil War it is through the propaganda of Ernest Hemingway’s admittedly compelling For Whom the Bell Tolls, or through Pablo Picasso’s chaotic (and admittedly repellant) Guernica. That version goes something like this: an oppressed working class calling themselves republicans rose up against a tyrannical aristocracy allied with … Read more
Now that the military has finally surrendered in the face of relentless feminist pressure to allow women into combat, one might as well chalk up yet another battle in the culture wars won by the progressive Left. The rather cynically amusing thing about it is the tone of the articles in the mainstream media that … Read more
In the fall of 2007, I spent a week in Spain, giving lectures, meeting with Spanish Catholic leaders, and making a hair-raising climb up several hundred scaffolding stairs to the top of Antoni Gaudi’s Basilica of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona — preceded by Stanislaw Cardinal Dziwisz, Pope John Paul II’s longtime secretary, who was … Read more
Time for some Friday-morning link action. Somehow all the links today ended up being reading/writing/storytelling related, so get ready: Novelist Anne Rice, who had a very public reversion to the Faith in the 1990s, is now just as publicly breaking it off again: “I quit being a Christian. I’m out. In the name of Christ, … Read more