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Eucharistic Coherence

Since being appointed bishop of Springfield, Illinois in 2010, I have been asked many times about the matter of Holy Communion for Sen. Richard Durbin, whose home is in Springfield. In April 2004, Sen. Durbin’s pastor, Msgr. Kevin Vann (now Bishop Kevin Vann of Orange, California), said he would . . . . Continue Reading »

Letters

I read R. R. Reno’s charitable words on Karl Barth with great interest (“Karl Barth,” May) and would like to offer my own remarks as a ­supplement. At the Protestant Theologicum in Tübingen (1974–5), I spent a year sharing an office with Reno’s mentor, Ronald Thiemann. Ron’s background . . . . Continue Reading »

One-Man Revolution

In 1932, while covering a worker’s strike in Washington, D.C., Dorothy Day said a prayer. Since her conversion to Catholicism, she felt that she could no longer join such strikes. Joining a strike was an expression of ­solidarity—and fundamental philosophical differences prevented true . . . . Continue Reading »

Catholic Ideas and Catholic Realities

For the last fifty years, from the Second Vatican Council onward, it made sense to speak of an American Catholicism fully reconciled to liberal democracy. On the fringes there were still some noteworthy anti-liberal and radical Catholic periodicals and writers, but the mainstream was defined by the . . . . Continue Reading »

Just Here

A young friend of mine recently fell victim to an unexpected and horrific illness. For some time, it seemed that he would certainly die; the progress of the disease led expectations relentlessly in that direction. Prayers (­including my own) for God’s mercy multiplied with a profound desperation. . . . . Continue Reading »

When Rome Policed Art

A century ago, a little-known Belgian artist named Albert Servaes became famous when cardinals at the Holy Office in Rome censured him for depicting Jesus Christ in a way they considered unsuitable for Catholics. The story made the front page of American Art News in New York. In this . . . . Continue Reading »

Signs of the Times

The woke revolutionaries get the headlines. A psychologist speaking at Yale fantasizes about killing “white people.” Princeton’s classics department eliminates Latin and Greek as requirements for undergraduate majors. The media bombard us with warnings about “white supremacy.” It’s easy . . . . Continue Reading »

Bach and Pythagoras

Anyone who begins playing Bach as an adult will notice two things: that he should have started earlier, ideally by studying the piano as a child instead of chasing a leathery orb around some field; and that there is something of the divine in Bach. Philosophers have always drawn a connection between . . . . Continue Reading »

Class Acts

Another summer, another moving season in Northern Virginia, a region filled with peripatetic military and federal families. Some folks, like us, move by choice—our three-bedroom townhome with no yard had become ­inadequate for our four small children. Others, like the family of six across the . . . . Continue Reading »

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