The legacy of Joseph Ratzinger does not rest on the institution of “pope emeritus,” which he pioneered. The great legacy of the theology professor, the cardinal prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Pope Benedict XVI is instead his theological work, which . . . . Continue Reading »
What’s wrong with America? There’s a two-word answer: Baby Boomers. It’s more complicated than that, of course. No generation exists in a vacuum. Baby Boomers may praise themselves as revolutionary and transformative, but as a member of that bulging cohort born between 1946 and 1964, I can . . . . Continue Reading »
The pope entombed in the crypt under St. Peter’s Basilica on January 5, 2023 was without doubt an extraordinary man.As a friend observed, “We’re not likely to see anyone half as well-educated or a tenth as wise anytime soon.” I think he’s right. Ratzinger was a deeply learned man. . . . . Continue Reading »
Cormac McCarthy seems firmly established as a canonical American novelist, but it may be several decades before we determine the precise nature of his achievement. His career has taken an odd shape. His early, Faulknerian novels, set in his native Tennessee, bore ample evidence of his talent but . . . . Continue Reading »
Through the mouth of the cave I watched the storm front move in from the east. I could already hear the approaching thunder; the low bank of cloud was gray with it. I was perched on a low ledge inside the cave, which was just long enough to accommodate a human body laid prone. I had filled the place . . . . Continue Reading »
Sometime in the mid-seventeenth century, in a quarry in Cornwell, someone found a piece of a much bigger world. It was a bone, the lower part of a thighbone, and it looked almost exactly like the femur of a man. But this bone was enormous: At its widest point, it was two feet across. The specimen . . . . Continue Reading »
No Apologies: Why Civilization Depends on the Strength of Men is the latest in a string of brilliant offerings from Anthony Esolen: Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture, Nostalgia: Going Home in a Homeless World, and Sex and the Unreal City. Utilizing his . . . . Continue Reading »
Litter Crew Ahead.Their budget’s in the red,but still they have a signthat has always said:Litter Crew Ahead. The younger and the older,the timid and the bolder,in a ragged linethey’re down below the shoulder.In rain that makes them colder, they patiently collectthe things that we eject,our . . . . Continue Reading »
It seems a silly thing, an object ratherFor study by the great pathologists,That anyone should live in fear of Eros;But just think how their names have swelled to lists: The god who chased a woman to a tree;The Moor who crushed the breath within his love;That queen ensconced within a strange . . . . Continue Reading »
—After photographs by Dorothea Lange taken in the Texas Panhandle Alone, a woman stands in black and whitesurveying a discolored sky aboveand nothing on the earth around her, savea windmill, with its blades congealed on film, vain, futile. Pride has not deserted her,her stance proclaims; but . . . . Continue Reading »
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