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Reflections on the Revolution

I was born in San Francisco and went to a college barely an hour’s drive from the famous Haight-Ashbury district. It gave me a front-row seat at the beginning of what we now refer to as the sexual revolution. I watched as the young women around me gave in to the onslaught. It was only later . . . . Continue Reading »

Homeless in Seattle

My name is Gil ­Costello, and I live at one of the Pike Place Market’s senior housing buildings, the ­Stewart House. I am seventy years old. In 1955, at eight years old, I began my on-and-off life of homelessness. At age eleven, before becoming addicted to drugs, I learned to ride rails around . . . . Continue Reading »

Hate Signs

I just passed a sign in a store window that says, “No Vacancy for Hate.” Well, I thought, that’s a little less righteous than similar messages in front lawns and restaurant portals: “Hate Is Not Welcome Here,” “Hate Is Not a Family Value,” and other censures of the number one sin . . . . Continue Reading »

Catholicism After 2018

Theodore McCarrick has been stripped of his status as cardinal for pursuing young men throughout his clerical career. “­Uncle Ted” liked to take his “nephews” to bed with him. The public revelations of this fact evoked outrage. It was not so much that a churchman sinned as that he did so . . . . Continue Reading »

Briefly Noted

Inside the Mind of Thomas More:  The Witness of His Writings by louis w. karlin and david r. oakley scepter, 130 pages, $11.95 This little volume by Louis ­Karlin and David Oakley uses Thomas More’s own writings to demonstrate the nature of his witness to the truth. The authors gently . . . . Continue Reading »

The Imperial Conductor

Toscanini:  Musician of Conscience  by harvey sachs liveright, 944 pages, $39.95 When the first instruction manual for leaders of orchestras—Johann Mattheson’s Der vollkommene Capellmeister—appeared in 1739, it was a sign that the size of orchestral ensembles and the . . . . Continue Reading »

Letters

Peter Hitchens is invariably witty and provocative. His recent essay (“Latimer and Ridley Are Forgotten,” June/July) is no exception. Although diverting, it errs in at least one crucial respect: its assertion that the “judicial murders of Thomas More and John Fisher were political in origin, . . . . Continue Reading »

You Better Like It

Suicide of the West:  How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics Is Destroying American Democracy by jonah goldberg crown, 464 pages, $28 Jonah Goldberg exemplifies the decadence and dysfunction of today’s public discourse. According to his new book, the West . . . . Continue Reading »

Magisterial Irresponsibility

Luis Francisco Cardinal ­Ladaria Ferrer of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has announced to the bishops Pope Francis’s approval of new material addressing capital punishment in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (number 2267). The inserted passage notes “an . . . . Continue Reading »

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