In our March issue, George Weigel offered a comprehensive, incisive, and, it must be admitted, devastating examination of “The Churches and War in the Gulf.” In times of war, it has been said, truth is the first casualty. There is something to that. But times of great national moment can . . . . Continue Reading »
It is nothing new for poets, painters, and philosophers to harken back to Utopian “golden ages” when greatness or harmony flourished. The German Romantics were inspired by the ancient Greeks. The British Romantics longed for the pastoral beauty of pre-industrial times. The American . . . . Continue Reading »
“Sherman Led by Victory” Is a St. Gaudens statue, A cast-bronze allegory. With Victory as a woman Pulling his horse’s bridle Out of a sculptor’s stable. Leading him off the pedestal Into a bronze fable. I used to think Sherman A beautiful . . . . Continue Reading »
From time to time, a most unlikely book strikes the public imagination and becomes something of a best seller. A case in point is Donald Kagan’s Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy (Free Press). The book’s reception was undoubtedly aided by the triumph of democratic ideas so . . . . Continue Reading »
Before we dismantle this imposing structure, let’s step back a moment and admire its elegant lines.” Thus Alex Tourigny, my teacher of philosophical psychology forty years ago, was wont to mark the pause before the crusher. His version of the crusher was a deadly “reduction to first . . . . Continue Reading »
In a recently published book, Sergio I. Minerbi, formerly of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, speaks of the Catholic Church as “the chief opponent” of the Zionist movement past and present, and he identifies “the real reasons underlying” this “hostility” as “immutable . . . . Continue Reading »
Sure, Walker Percy already said it, but that was as a good-natured joshing, a passing joke. Now it's hit the pages of the Wall Street Journal; everybody's in on it. The November 29, 1990 Journal reports a national survey conducted by the University of Wisconsin's Center of . . . . Continue Reading »
Legion are the universities and colleges in the United States founded under the auspices of the churches. Princeton, Calvin, Hanover, Tulsa, and Macalaster were founded as Presbyterian or Reformed. Brown, Baylor, Wake Forest, Spelman, and Vassar were Baptist. Haverford, Swarthmore, Earlham, . . . . Continue Reading »
With the apparent demise of Communism, if not of socialism, the other political pathology of modernity, nationalism, is returning to center stage. If scientific socialism carries the “progressive” idea of human universality to its extreme, nationalism carries the “reactionary” idea of . . . . Continue Reading »
For Christians, as for everyone else, the topic of sexual ethics is today one of widespread confusion, contention, and uncertainty. In this essay I propose to deal with the specific question of the kinds of promises and undertakings people ought to make when they engage in sexual relations. But I . . . . Continue Reading »
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