After dinner, the evening before that conference in Vienna a while back, Christoph Cardinal Schoenborn took George Weigel and me on a private tour of the episcopal palace. The vestiges of splendor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire are inspiring, although today one cannot help but wonder if they are . . . . Continue Reading »
Less than a year ago, on July 7, 2005, four bombs went off in the London underground, killing 56 people. Ah yes, some might respond, Was it really so recently? It seems so long ago, just another of those nasty incidents that don’t bear thinking about. The arrest of 17 Canadian Muslim . . . . Continue Reading »
It is getting the attention it deserves in avowedly conservative circles, but Ramesh Ponnuru’s fine book The Party of Death is being assiduously ignored by the people who most need to engage his arguments. Ross Douthat has this to say over on The American Scene : The official line, so far as . . . . Continue Reading »
At first glance Melanie Phillips’ Londonistan , seems a little off-putting. The prose is shrill, the point repetitive and relentless, the outrage so ceaseless that it quickly grows tiresome and, worse, unbelievable. Yes, you find yourself saying, the British let Muslim culture in England . . . . Continue Reading »
Auschwitz is always a harsh lesson¯a slap, a rebuke, an indictment. This is a proof of what humans can do. This is a monument to what humans can be. There is no one who is not guilty, there is no one who is not shamed, there is no one who is not shown a mirror by that vile camp the Nazis built . . . . Continue Reading »
The New Yorker has noticed that Oriana Fallaci is not exactly what you might call a run-of-the-mill commentator on recent events. "At one point in The Rage and the Pride ," Margaret Talbot notes, Fallaci "complains about Somali Muslims leaving ‘yellow streaks of urine that . . . . Continue Reading »
The Rev. George Coyne, S.J., director of the Vatican Observatory, has a penchant for theologically risqué statements. In a recent talk he asked, about life’s origins, "Do we need God to explain this? Very succinctly, my answer is no." Well, very succinctly, that is absurd. Of . . . . Continue Reading »
Here’s a happy spin. The headline in Catholic New York , “The Nation’s Largest Catholic Newspaper,” reads: “Poll Says Catholics Not Swayed by ‘Da Vinci Code.’” That’s good news, if you don’t read the story. The national survey was done by . . . . Continue Reading »
I was honored to be asked to speak at the commencement of the Dominican House of Studies, also known as the Pontificial Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, in Washington, D.C. As readers of First Things know, I have a thing about the Dominicans and their charism. Here is what I said: I . . . . Continue Reading »
Out in Orange County , they’re preaching fire and brimstone. "Rebellion, grave disobedience, and mortal sin," the pastor of St. Mary’s by the Sea in Huntington Beach, California, thundered to his congregation in the church bulletin. Now, ever since Jonathan Edwards preached . . . . Continue Reading »
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