Elizabeth Scalia

The only good thing about watching your baseball team get eliminated in the post-season is that, after launching a frustrated shoe at the television, one is excused from having to endure repeated viewings of the detestable little playlets written by Madison Avenue cynics who”perhaps due to the bad economy”have decided to eschew psychotherapy in favor of working out their relationship issues and general neurosis on the rest of us… . Continue Reading »

A big story getting barely any press outside of Catholic media is that the government is getting ready to press ahead with policies intended”note the word, intended”to intrude upon one of the fundamental rights on which the nation was built: the freedom of religion. Under the 2010 health care law colloquially known as “Obamacare,” the U.S. Department of Health and Human services is determinedly plowing forward with its so-called “contraceptive mandate””all private health plans are to cover contraception and sterilization as “preventive services” for women, and the mandate includes individuals and groups with moral or religious objections… . Continue Reading »

It was 2003. Eight innings into yet-another nail-biter of a series between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees, there came a guttural wail from the stands at Fenway Park. “For the love of God . . .” It was one lone voice; a man—whose sound was remarkably reminiscent of the late Chris Farley at his most passionately unhinged—was seated close enough to the announcer’s booth that his agony was picked up and broadcast in New York . . . . Continue Reading »

When Great-Grandma Antonina wanted to reinforce her opinion on a point of political or social contention, the diminutive matriarch of a family friend would draw herself up to her full 4-feet-eleven-inches and declare with a dignified surety that would brook no doubt, “I read it in the newspaper!” At other times, particularly during the Huntley-Brinkley heyday, Antonina would argue, “it must be true! They said it on the TV!” … Continue Reading »

At the 1964 Democratic National Convention, Robert Kennedy”finding kinship with a doomed heroine of fiction”referenced the loss of his brother, President John F. Kennedy, by quoting Shakespeare’s Juliet: “When he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun.” During the wake and funeral of my own beloved brother, that imagery kept bubbling up through my awareness, and it comforted me… . Continue Reading »

Having announced several years ago that he is dealing with early-onset dementia, Terry Pratchett, the celebrated author of scores of fantasy titles, most notably the marvelously wise and entertaining Disc World series, has—despite rumors to the contrary—staunchly maintained his atheist’s stance. Last year he declared that, having compared Genesis to Darwin, he found the latter to be by far the more interesting story and, taken all-in-all, he would “rather be a rising ape than a fallen angel.” … Continue Reading »

A question is bubbling amid conservative-leaning websites, asking whether the New York Times’ executive editor Bill Keller is guilty of committing bad satire or simple bigotry. In a feature for the magazine, Keller suggested that presidential candidates, specifically Republican presidential candidates, should face “tougher questions” about the role faith plays in their lives… . Continue Reading »

Just about two years ago, I had occasion to make a monastic retreat that included the gift and privilege of perpetual adoration. The community of Dominican nuns kept constant vigil, one-by-one with our lord, present in the Eucharist, and they invited me to do the same in their public chapel, throughout the night, if I liked. Those hours of silent contemplation wrought a subtle but lasting change within me; at the time it did not feel subtle. It felt like dynamite applied beneath my soul: kaboom went everything I thought I knew, and I have been processing the experience, and working at restoration, ever since… . Continue Reading »

It is rare for a book release, no matter how timely, to coincide with breaking news. In the case of Mark Steyn’s After America the alignment was downright spooky. As louts, brats and the non-thinkers who wish merely to be part of a “moment” terrorized the citizenry and burned down London neighborhoods, across the pond one could enter a bookstore, lift Steyn’s latest from a shelf and read … Continue Reading »

A pal of mine, whose political views are to the left of my own, is not very happy with President Obama. He dislikes Obama’s continuation of many of President Bush’s policies and he is disillusioned with Obama’s meager leadership skills, but his criticism is fairly low-key, characterized by a sense of quiet restlessness. Nevertheless, if I dare to criticize the president”on the policies, the passivity, the professorial condescension, the pea-eating lectures or on the general over-ratedness that I and many others counted, in 2008, as weaknesses rendering him unsuited to the Oval Office … Continue Reading »