George Weigel

The humanitarian and strategic disaster of Syria should focus Catholic minds on the hard fact that there is no easy or quick path to peace in the Middle East, a very dangerous part of the world where Christians of all persuasions are at daily risk of their lives. Two recently published books will help those eager to get beyond media sound-bites, wishful thinking, and vague pieties in order to think seriously about the realities that must be faced in a region with too little geography and too much history, where religiously-inspired passion too often leads to murder… . Continue Reading »

SIAULIAI, LITHUANIA”No one knows when pious Lithuanians first erected crosses of all sizes on a hill about seven miles north of the city of Siauliai; it may have been after an abortive 1831 uprising against Russian rule over the small Baltic country. Oftentimes, the bodies of Lithuanian patriots killed during that rebellion, and a similar revolt in 1863, could not be found. … Continue Reading »

This past August, while contemplating the beauties of the Ottawa River from the deck of my family’s cottage on Allumette Island, Father Raymond de Souza, the Canadian commentator and a former-student-become-friend-and-colleague, offered an interesting take on World Youth Day 2016, which will be held in Cracow. When you think about it, he said, “the 20th century happened in Cracow” … . Continue Reading »

In a review quoted on the back cover of Ian Ker’s G.K. Chesterton: A Biography (Oxford), Susan Elkin suggests that Fr. Ker’s book “has the potential to establish Chesterton in what Ker regards as his rightful place as a major English author.” That’s certainly true; but one does wonder about that “Ker regards… .” business. Does Ms. Elkin not regard Chesterton as a “major English author”? I imagine she would regard George Bernard Shaw, Chesterton’s friendly antagonist, as such; and Shaw without doubt regarded Chesterton as such… . Continue Reading »

CRACOW”The chapel in the archbishop’s residence in Cracow”which everyone calls by its street name, “Franciszkanska 3””has witnessed a lot of modern Church history. Here, clandestine seminarians watched the city’s heroic archbishop, Adam Stefan Sapieha, put the terrible problems of the long, dark night of Occupation before the Lord, every night during World War II… . Continue Reading »

Cracow, Poland”The village of Pasierbiec is in the south of Poland, about thirty miles from the old royal capital of Cracow. Its church, the Basilica of Our Lady of Consolation, is full of votum gifts testifying to favors received through the intercession of the basilica’s namesake… . Continue Reading »

As I remember it, the Civil War centenary, which coincided with my middle school years, got far more public attention than the war’s sesquicentennial has received. There were a flurry of Gettysburg sesquicentennial columns and book reviews in July; the Civil War Daily Gazette provides a reminder, in detail and every 24 hours, of the drama that was unfolding across the land, 150 years ago; Tommy Lee Jones did the impossible by rendering Thaddeus Stevens an attractive character in the Spielberg film, Lincoln. But it would be a stretch to say that this colossal event, which made the United States an “is” rather than an “are,” is prominent in the nation’s consciousness in this anniversary period… . Continue Reading »

In the wake of late-term abortionist Kermit Gosnell’s homicide convictions this past May, several state legislatures began crafting laws that would protect unborn life at earlier stages of gestation while shutting down horror houses like Gosnell’s Philadelphia “clinic.” Whether these laws will stand constitutional scrutiny remains to be seen; what is worth noting now is the degree to which deeply-entrenched supporters of the unrestricted abortion license created by the Supreme Court in 1973 still don’t get it … Continue Reading »

When I began columnizing, in the Paleolithic Period when a correcting IBM Selectric II typewriter seemed the ne plus ultra of technology-for-scribes, I collected quotable quotes in a plastic box, for possible insertion into columns in the manner of my friend, Dr. George F. Will. Rooting around the yellowing scraps in that box recently, I came across a gaggle of zingers that went unused, but which it seems a shame not to share with readers and posterity. So, for a little summer levity, here we go … . Continue Reading »

A few months ago, after I had given a lecture on the future of Catholicism in Kennewick, Washington, a middle-aged fellow who looked to be a rancher got up and stunned me with a query. “For the past twenty-five years,” he said, “you and your colleagues have tried to create a ‘religiously . . . . Continue Reading »