Stefan McDaniel

We began just after daybreak. One by one, the brigades filed out of the parking lot, each singing a different hymn. Turning away from the water, the lengthening line of pilgrims snaked up the hill toward a colossal statue of St. Isaac Jogues. This St. Isaac was not the bashful youth of prayer cards. . . . . Continue Reading »

Continental Ambitions:  Roman Catholics in North America  by kevin starr ignatius, 675 pages, $34.95 In The Good Shepherd, the 2006 spy film, mobster Joseph Palmi asks CIA agent (and stereotypical WASP) Edward Wilson an insolent question: “We Italians, we got our families . . . . Continue Reading »

The January 7, 2015 terrorist attacks provoked the largest demonstrations in France since the liberation of Paris. The impressive spectacle of many thousands calling themselves “Charlie” suggests that the French all accept the scatologists of Charlie Hebdo as national saints. On this view . . . . Continue Reading »

American Cicero: The Life of Charles Carroll by bradley j. birzer isi, 230 pages, $25 Bradley Birzer’s new book, American Cicero: The Life of Charles Carroll, suggests that Hillsdale College realized their hopes in making Birzer the Russell Amos Kirk Chair in American Studies; it is hard to . . . . Continue Reading »

The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Sixties by Jonathan Leaf Regnery, 247 pages, $19.95 “What a shrill, pointless decade,” said The Simpson’ s fictional news anchor Kent Brockman . He was describing the 1960s, of course, and his summary neatly captures the attitude of most . . . . Continue Reading »

The Devil Reads Derrida: And Other Essays on the University, the Church, Politics, and the Arts by James K.A. Smith Eerdmans, 160 pages, $18 Some may dismiss James K.A. Smith’s polemics against mainstream conservative ideas and sentiments (especially celebration of American power, wealth, and . . . . Continue Reading »

Someone recently encouraged me to write more, because “words aren’t lifeblood. Words are cheap.” Words are certainly held cheap, and the blogosphere has drastically lowered the going rate. This is a development entirely in conformity with the spirit of the age, which, as Wendell Berry observed, does not ask a man what he can do well but “what he can do fast and cheap.” Berry and I are not alone in thinking that this is a bad state of affairs. It’s no small problem that our society is trying to do very important business with increasingly debased currency. Which brings to mind Neil Postman… Continue Reading »

Promoter, promote thyself! Amanda was so enthusiastic about Robert Miola’s piece that she forgot to direct readers to her own thoughtful and elegant review of Paul Mariani’s Gerard Manley Hopkins (subscribers only): Absent a biblical understanding of sacrifice, a biographer would be . . . . Continue Reading »

Unlike Joseph , I think social conservatism and economic leftism (if “leftism” means willingness to significantly restrict trade) are very easy to reconcile on the level of philosophy and, outside the US (a nation whose rather counterintuitive but seemingly immutable political . . . . Continue Reading »

“Real disagreement is a rare achievement, because so much of what passes for disagreement is really just confusion.” So said moderator Mary Ann Glendon (quoting John Courtney Murray) at the end of a discussion —it was pointedly and pointlessly distinguished from a debate . . . . Continue Reading »