The Search for an American Public Theology: The Contribution of John Courtney Murray by robert w. mcelroy paulist press, 216 pages, $10.95 The Ethics of Discourse: The Social Philosophy of John Courtney Murray by j. leon hooper georgetown university press, 283 pages, $17.95 . . . . Continue Reading »
It sometimes seems to me through the mists of memory that I spent my childhood in church. That is not actually the case, of course. There was the weekly Sunday morning service, preceded by Sunday School, and it was invariable, no more to be questioned or argued over than attendance at regular . . . . Continue Reading »
In his engagingly titled book, What’s Wrong With the World, G. K. Chesterton argued that his fellow citizens could not repair the defects of the family because they had no ideal at which to aim. Neither the Tory (Gudge) nor the Socialist (Hudge) had an ideal that viewed the family as sacred, an . . . . Continue Reading »
1. I start to dream I am waking and wake with a start from the dream. Shadows gather in the attic, in the hallways, bedrooms, walls: their smell, like gas, is everywhere. I start to dream I am waking . . . 2. Night falls, then falls again as if drunk, as if slipping on ice . . . . Continue Reading »
Intellectuals who are also Christians face the continuing problem of the tangled relationship between their vocation and their faith. As intellectuals, they necessarily immerse themselves in the wisdom of this world; as Christians, they understand that wisdom to be in considerable tension with what . . . . Continue Reading »
What can we know? How should we live? In what or whom should we hope? A historian might fruitfully divide Western intellectual life into periods or cultures according to which one of these three questions was the central and controlling one for them. But this imaginary (and ambitious!) historian . . . . Continue Reading »
Abortion does funny things to the mind. Not necessarily the procedure itself: expert opinion on its mental effects is, at least according to Dr. Koop, inconclusive. I am referring to abortion polemics, specifically to the political, judicial, academic, and popular debate over its legality. It has . . . . Continue Reading »
The Woodstock Center at Georgetown University is where some distinguished Jesuits, and some less distinguished Jesuits, fiddle with their theological fretwork. A recent Woodstock Report is entirely given over to fretting about today’s favorite crisis, the environment. It comes with a recommended . . . . Continue Reading »
Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes by laurence h. tribe norton, 259 pages, $19.95 Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes is an expert brief on behalf of strict adherence to the terms of the abortion liberty granted in Roe v. Wade, no matter how much leeway the Supreme Court may give to legislatures in . . . . Continue Reading »
Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity by charles taylor harvard university press, 601 pages, $29.95 To describe Sources of the Self as a learned book would be a little like describing Michael Jordan as a skilled basketball player: accurate, but hardly adequate to the . . . . Continue Reading »
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