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Articles
Aging and the Quest for Immortality
Nobody wants to live to be a hundred, except the guy who’s ninety-nine. Or so the saying goes. But it’s not true. Plenty of people have an appetite for...
China, DeepSeek, and American Complacency
History is a heartless teacher. Three hundred years before Christ, Carthage was a prosperous commercial empire dominating the Mediterranean, sustained and protected by the world’s most powerful navy. Rome...
Advent from a Prison Cell
The recent (and sadly flawed) movie Bonhoeffer reminds us that Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor and Lutheran theologian, is rightly revered for his courage in resisting Nazism—a path that...
Woke Ideology Is Not Dead and Buried
I spent the evening after November 5 on YouTube. The site was full of time-compressed videos that tracked news media icons and Hollywood celebrities as election night wore on....
Roses, Chocolate, and Ambiguity
I staffed a bishop-delegate in Rome at the 2015 Synod on the Family. Asked, at the time, for possible themes at the next synod, the delegate pressed for (among...
On the Politics of Joy
Founded in 1946, the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, sponsored by the Archdiocese of New York, has taken place in every presidential election year on the third...
Rome, the SCV, and Accountability
Speaking to a parish gathering of Catholic families several years ago, I concluded with the following remarks: If you’re like me, there’s always a skeptical little voice in your...
On Distinguishing Justice and Vengeance
For Peru, the 1980s were an ugly time. Shining Path, a Maoist terror group, was in full swing, ultimately murdering nearly 25,000 victims, many of them poor. The economy...
Empires in Eclipse
The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation by victor davis hanson basic books, 343 pages, $20.95. A few years ago a longtime friend and “bird” (i.e., full-rank)...
Faithful Laity, More Priests
The philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre once described humans as “dependent, rational animals,” arguing in his text that, as creatures, we need the virtues. This makes sense, because none of us...
The Needs of the Vatican Tomorrow
In March 2022, a memorandum entitled “The Vatican Today” appeared and was widely circulated. Sharply critical of the Francis pontificate, it was signed by an anonymous source described as...
On the Character of a Nation
Eulogies are curious things. Too many, too often, are long, rambling, weepy, and meaningful only to the relatively few who liked the deceased enough to show up for the...
Laudate Deum Barely Mentions Christ
Laudate Deum (“Praise God”), Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation on the climate crisis, released in Rome today, has at least one great strength. It’s shorter than Laudato Si’ (“Praised Be”),...
Critics, Enemies, and the Difference
Why is he shouting at us?” It was an innocent question, whispered at Mass in the middle of an agitated Pope Francis homily. My wife had arrived in Rome...
Men Without Memories
Toward a More Perfect Union: The Moral and Cultural Case for Teaching the Great American Storyby timothy s. goegleinrnfidelis publishing, 208 pages, $26 Simone Weil, the Jewish philosopher and...
