The Catholic intellectual world (and beyond) is no doubt still mourning last week’s passing of Ralph McInerny. McInerny’s death, aside from providing an opportunity to reflect on his own legacy, also invites us to reflect on the body of learning known as Thomism… . Continue Reading »
First came Climategate. Hacked e-mails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at England’s University of East Anglia (UEA) showed that CRU researchers were defending the thesis that humans are causing global warming by suppressing contrary evidence … Continue Reading
It’s a sign of the times that Federico Fellini’s 1963 classic 8½”widely considered the best film ever made about filmmaking”has been remade in such a way that its famous story of one man’s artistic and spiritual crisis no longer resembles itself… . Continue Reading
One tumultuous year into his presidency, President Obama remains a man without a mission. Without a mission to space, that is… . Continue Reading »
Occasional Poetry and John Updike’s Endpoint
02.02.2010
Micah Mattix
That John Updike wrote poems as well as novels is news to few people who follow contemporary poetry. Before his death, a common view of Updike’s poetry was that it was light, entertaining stuff that he wrote to refresh himself after the serious work of fiction. After his death, however, a number of critics have hailed it as the elephant in the room of contemporary American poetry… . Continue Reading »
That John Updike wrote poems as well as novels is news to few people who follow contemporary poetry. Before his death, a common view of Updike’s poetry was that it was light, entertaining stuff that he wrote to refresh himself after the serious work of fiction. After his death, however, a number of critics have hailed it as the elephant in the room of contemporary American poetry… . Continue Reading »
Life as a bishop—or at least the life of this bishop—does not leave much time to spend on poetry. But a few years ago a friend loaned me a volume of Rainer Maria Rilke, and of course, Rilke’s work can be quite beautiful. In it, I found some lines of his verse that might help us begin our discussion today . . . Continue Reading »
Two weeks ago, the Tiger Woods scandal was returned to the news by reports that Woods was receiving treatment for sex addiction. While many may have welcomed this sordid story’s earlier disappearance, it in fact deserves serious consideration because of what it says about our culture and, in fact, about our very humanity… . . Continue Reading »
One of the marks of a virtuous character, according to Aristotle, is the performance of virtuous acts with ease and delight. On that basis, as well as others, Ralph McInerny was a remarkably virtuous man. One of Ralph’s most beautiful books is entitled The Very Rich Hours of Jacques Maritain: A Spiritual Life,
the premise of which is that “we can find in the person of Jacques
Maritain a model of the intellectual life in the pursuit of sanctity.”
Those words certainly apply to Ralph… . . Continue Reading »
Call it the Clinton Clutch”the stylized maneuver in the political playbook for incumbent Democrats who have run into a spot of bother. President Obama’s first State of the Union address last night will be interpreted as a replay of Clinton’s 1995 classic… . Continue Reading »
While visiting the National Gallery of Art this past Saturday, I ran into a pair of errant security guards who have taken to interpreting the Constitution in their spare time. I decided to visit the Gallery after attending the March for Life the day before… . Continue Reading »
The Public Argument of Conscientious Objection
01.27.2010
Grattan Brown
Why do advocates of abortion and contraception find the conscientious objection of pharmacists and other medical professionals so intolerable? … Continue Reading »
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