It’s common among Catholic commentators to look back on the era from the late 1930s to the early 1960s and see a great time of conversions in America and England. There was something in the air that was drawing secularly important or promising people to the Church. The list is well known, and . . . . Continue Reading »
Muriel Spark is gone , dying on Thursday at age eighty-eight, the last representative of Great Britain’s high literary converts before Vatican II. There’s a revealing moment toward the end of her 1992 memoir of her early career, Curriculum Vitae . Times were hard for her in 1953. She . . . . Continue Reading »
GOOD FRIDAY 2006 “Through Mary he received his humanity, and in receiving his humanity received humanity itself. Which is to say, through Mary he received us. In response to the angel’s strange announcement, Mary said yes. But only God knew that it would end up here at Golgotha, that it . . . . Continue Reading »
In Rome, the station church today is St. John Lateran, the parish church of the Bishop of Rome. I remember walking the station churches with the seminarians of the North American College. It was done with convivial solemnity, recalling what is to be recalled this day, reenacting what was enacted . . . . Continue Reading »
Moving to less controversial topics, George Will had a thoughtful column Sunday before last on new efforts to gin up the panic about global warming. He notes that Time magazine has this big issue declaring, “Be worried. Be very worried.” Will is amused by the piquant presumption that . . . . Continue Reading »
Mondays and Tuesdays are Joseph Bottum’s turns at this site, but he is sick in bed. Please join me in praying for his rapid recovery. Herewith an excerpt from a fine opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal by Fr. Thomas Williams, a seminary rector in Rome, on the kerfuffle over the National . . . . Continue Reading »
When these holy days roll around, segments of the media, as reliably as clockwork, roll out the latest alleged debunkings of historically recognizable Christianity. There was, for instance, an item a few days ago about a climatologist who opined that back in the old days Galilee experienced cold . . . . Continue Reading »
Some tough words from the usually understated and scrupulously cautious Mark Chopko, general counsel of the U.S. bishops conference. Surveying legislative and regulative initiatives impinging upon various medical, social, and educational ministries, he says religious institutions are being . . . . Continue Reading »
For a while it seemed that Father John Jenkins, the new president of the University of Notre Dame, was going to do the sensible thing about the performance of “The Vagina Monologues” on his campus. Unfortunately, he seems to have suffered some kind of collapse, whether of the will or . . . . Continue Reading »
For several years now there has been a raft of books and articles aimed at debunking notions of “American exceptionalism.” With respect to the last century of “secularization theory,” that debunking is necessary. In that theory, the vitality of religion in the United States . . . . Continue Reading »
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