Archive

R. R. Reno I was in a Goodwill in Denver when my eyes fell upon a paperback Penguin edition of Charles Dickens’s Bleak House. I bought it, and while...

Once, the story goes, man stood at the center of the universe. He looked in the mirror and saw a masterpiece: “How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty...

The pope is dead. Sede vacante. From the round earth’s imagined corners come the 120 cardinal-electors, the progressive and the conservative, the extrovert and the taciturn, the Latin and the...

How can Britain’s assisted suicide bill, which comes before the House of Commons on Friday, possibly fail? Although it is not an official government bill, the prime minister is...

The Sound of Silence: The Life and Canceling of a Heroic Jesuit Priestby karen hallcrisis, 240 pages, $18.95 Near the start of this book, there is an unexpectedly absorbing...

When the nineteen-year-old Joan of Arc was told she would be burned at the stake, she reacted with horror—not for the reasons you or I might give, but on...

In a by now familiar sequence of events, the Vatican released a document on Monday which caused instant confusion. “Pope says Roman Catholic priests can bless same-sex couples,” the...

Dimes Square and Other Playsby matthew gasdaapplause, 284 pages, $22.95 Are you religious?” alcoholic rich kid Jay asks high-achieving Ellie. “Spiritual,” she replies. JAY: So you go to yoga...

Have you heard about the scandalous writings by the new head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office? No, no: I don’t mean Heal Me With Your Mouth: The Art of Kissing,...

If you look around you,” one glum questioner remarked in the first Q and A, “this isn’t exactly a young crowd.” But his comment must have been pre-prepared, because...

Ten years into Pope Francis’s pontificate—he first waved from the balcony of St. Peter’s on March 13, 2013—he has been analyzed, praised, criticized, and interviewed ad nauseam. He began...

One was a small, shy, introverted figure, who in old age looked as though a strong breeze through the Vatican Gardens might temporarily lift him off his feet. The...

A couple of years ago I stumbled upon a cult. Browsing in a secondhand bookshop, I picked up R. H. Tawney’s Religion and the Rise of Capitalism and, remembering a...

The Poems (1961–2020)by derek mahonthe gallery, 536 pages, £22.50 Longtime fans of the Irish poet Derek ­Mahon had to laugh when, in the spring of 2020, he unexpectedly went...

On June 2, 1953, in the splendor of Westminster Abbey, a twenty-five-year-old woman knelt before the archbishop of Canterbury to seal the oaths she had just sworn. “Will you...