Yesterday’s New York Times ran an interesting story about Henri Tessier, the elderly archbishop of Algeria, "where he has been witness to what he says is the slow ‘death of a church.’" The immediate purpose of a Christian presence in Algeria, he claims, "is not to . . . . Continue Reading »
"Government Will Defend Polish ‘Morals.’" The story in the Herald Tribune underscores the sneer quotes around morals . As it happens, the prime minister had told the parliament in Warsaw that "the government will defend Polish culture and morals." One imagines an . . . . Continue Reading »
It’s hardly a breaking news story that the old mainline Protestant denominations are in trouble, both doctrinally and in membership numbers. It’s even less of a breaking story that a wide range of nondenominational churches¯or churches only loosely affiliated with a . . . . Continue Reading »
We were unable to get away from New York to attend President Bush’s stem-cell speech yesterday, but our friend Wesley J. Smith flew from California to see the event, and he promised to let us know how it went: I attended President Bush’s stem cell speech yesterday, and I have to say, it . . . . Continue Reading »
So, the tough-guy mystery writer Micky Spillane has died , passing away at age eighty-eight in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina. Back in 2001, the New American Library reissued a set of his Mike Hammer books, and I wrote at the time: Your first impulse will be to like Mickey Spillane. Here’s a . . . . Continue Reading »
Amy Welborn seems to have given up the editorship of the "Loyola Classics" that Loyola Press puts out , but while she was working on the project, she got several good writers to pen introductions to a range of interesting reprints of Catholic fiction. By the end, though, Welborn had . . . . Continue Reading »
Embryonic stem cells are back in the news , as the Senate debates the use of federal funding for destructive research. There’s something about the drive to force this issue that corresponds far too closely to political seasons: We seem compelled to have this debate again whenever elections . . . . Continue Reading »
It surely means something that we live in an age containing the greatest ukulele player ever born, but I’m not sure just what it means. His name is Jake Shimabukuro , a twenty-nine-year-old from Hawaii, and he can make a four-string ukulele do everything but sit up and beg¯and the . . . . Continue Reading »
He had a name like a James Bond villain¯ Money , Dr. Money ¯and he lived his life as though he were one of those villains, as well: With the mad conviction that he had come like Prometheus to deliver fire, with the crazed confidence that his genius raised him above the quotidian norms of . . . . Continue Reading »
While not an Anglican, I was quite interested in a piece of news that comes from The Christian Challenge , an online magazine that calls itself "The Only Worldwide Voice of Traditional Anglicanism." It reports that former U.S. senator John Danforth (also an Episcopal priest) gave a talk . . . . Continue Reading »