First Things’ “other” blog, First Thoughts, has editors listing the ten worst hymns and the ten best hymns. Whether this is a useful exercise is up to readers to judge. What is lacking is a set of criteria by which to judge what constitutes good and bad hymns. I note that most of the worst hymns are of recent Catholic origin, while the best have been around for a long time and are mostly of Reformed or Lutheran provenance. Are we perhaps seeing creeping protestant influence in an otherwise Catholic-leaning journal? Or could it be that the protestant hymns are more catholic than the Catholic ones?
The False Promise of No Contact
Around the time nineteen-year-old Alice began cutting ties with her family, she announced on social media that…
Moral Certitude and the Iran War
The current military engagement with Iran calls renewed attention to just war theory in the Catholic tradition.…
The Slow Death of England: New and Notable Books
The fate of England is much in the news as popular resistance to mass immigration grows, limits…