March 2019
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The Civility Trap
Lots of folks are calling for civility these days, an understandable response to a shrill and polarized…
A New Conservative Agenda
What has been known as conservatism in the Republican party since Ronald Reagan left office, fully thirty…
Letter to an Aspiring Priest
I’m grateful to you for getting in touch. Many people today would no doubt think you are…
The Past in Full
There’s a book I keep in the bathroom at home, a big blue volume of 750 pages…
Baptism of Blood
It is a scrupulously made short film, shot with several cameras in 2015. Arabic letters dance atop…
Letters
Lay Leadership Citing mass disenfranchisement in a “papal-episcopal oligarchy,” Bronwen McShea (“Bishops Unbound,” January) argues for institutional…
The Future of News
For about a century, American journalism had a paradigm that positioned the industry as essential to liberal…
Julien Green’s Vatican II
Several years ago, I came across some odd volumes of the journal of Julien Green in a…
Sentimental Frenzy
On the basis of a sixty-second clip, thousands of prominent Americans rushed to denounce the students of…
Boy on the Temple Roof
Young Rabbi Binder has opened the floor for a “free discussion” period at the afternoon Hebrew school…
An Irish Dante
The Five Quintetsby micheal o’siadhailbaylor, 381 pages, $34.95 Sartre famously wrote that “hell is other people,” but…
Make Dharma Great Again
Being Different: An Indian Challenge to Western Universalismby rajiv malhotra harpercollins, 488 pages, $26.99 Following the Brexit…
The New Lazarus
The Aviatorby eugene vodolazkintranslated by lisa c. haydenoneworld, 400 pages, $26.99 In one of the greatest memoirs…
Miyazaki’s Reality
Miyazakiworld: A Life in Artby susan napieryale, 344 pages, $30 Never-Ending Man, a documentary that recently enjoyed…
The Art of Spiritual Warfare
This Present Darknessby frank e. peretticrossway, 375 pages, $14.99 As a teenager, I was convinced that a…
Briefly Noted
Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary: Unveiling the Mother of the Messiah by brant pitre image…
Digging Shakespeare
I’d chosen English lit with the intentOf studying the writings of the Bard;But I was told he…
The Phone Not Ringing
The cumuli reach to the noontime moon.Nuthatch and warbler, starling and cowbird,Fall like the famished on seed…
All Flesh Is Grass
“When the ungodly are green as the grass, and when all the workers of wickedness do flourish,…
The County Library
In former times it was a simple place,Where one could read without a blushing face,With thickly bound…
The Annunciation I
Whispers of love were in the springtime airas I lay dreaming of our first full kissbeside the…
The Annunciation II
(To Gabriel) You are much nearer Godthan I, in solitude, withdrawn,can ever hope to be.You are the…