There are two types of patients: those who want to run the show, and those who want to be told what to do. As an anesthesiologist, I deal with both, and both make me uncomfortable. Giving patients too much freedom risks injury; denying patients their freedom makes me feel like a tyrant. What I . . . . Continue Reading »
When Roger Scruton died in early 2020, the world lost a philosopher with that rarest of gifts: the ability to express profound ideas in elegant and limpid prose. It also lost the man who more than any other in his generation had sought to develop a positive conservative philosophy, eschewing both . . . . Continue Reading »
Another Kennan biography? The study of George Kennan—American diplomat, strategic mind, and architect of the “containment” doctrine that guided U.S. policy throughout the Cold War—is so persistent in academic and policy circles that it has become almost a sub-discipline in . . . . Continue Reading »
Writing authentic history that is also authentically Catholic has been a tricky business since Cardinal Baronius, if not since St. Augustine. How are we to reconcile the profound and definitive historical consequences of the Incarnation with the obvious fact that sin continues to permeate the . . . . Continue Reading »
One of the priests I most admire grew up on a farm on the Canadian plains. The virtues of farm life transfer well to the parish: discipline, hard work, showing up, getting things done on time, maintaining relationships, helping people work together. And, not least, a kind of straightforward openness . . . . Continue Reading »
The clouds are fused with amber fireAs vultures climb a dirgy gyre,Babel building with each bird,Glutted on the primal Word.Later one lights on my head,Its talons tight, its wings still spread. —Steven Knepper Image by Jo Naylor via Creative Commons. Image cropped. . . . . Continue Reading »
Level with me—you’re Catholic, right? I get this question a lot—from students, folks at church, academic colleagues. I teach theology at a Stone–Campbellite university in west Texas. My friends and neighbors are, almost to a person, low-church believers, whether restorationist or . . . . Continue Reading »
In November 2022, the ACLU’s deputy director for transgender justice came out against gay marriage. “I find it disappointing how much time and resources went into fighting for inclusion in the deeply flawed and fundamentally violent institution of civil marriage,” Chase Strangio wrote on . . . . Continue Reading »
One day this winter, I found myself staring into a deep, dark, menacing hole. I mean that literally: I was visiting Khor Virap, an Armenian monastery in the foothills of Mount Ararat and the site of a miracle we could all use just about now. Feeling depressed about the fate of Western civilization? . . . . Continue Reading »
Every Briton seems to have reached a verdict on Prince Harry’s memoir, most without having read it. They should give it a go, because it has a lot to say about him, them, and the moral architecture of monarchy. Spare is a compelling psychological portrait of a man dragged up in a fantastical . . . . Continue Reading »
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