Michael Novak

You can see them at many grave sites where the War of Independence was fought, and the battlefields of 1812, and the Civil War. You can see them at the Alamo. You can see them arrayed now in rows of crosses and stars of David below the purpled hills of Anzio, and on the long sweeps of the green . . . . Continue Reading »

More and more often on Catholic campuses, left-wing Catholics are hiding their own ideological preferences behind the mantra "Catholic social thought." To listen to them, you would think that the Catholic social ethic has four main emphatic tenets and five great silences. The four emphases . . . . Continue Reading »

In the next few days (March 19), Harvard theologian Harvey Cox will be celebrating his seventy-eighth birthday. Since I’m pressing right behind him, this seemed like a good time to express my gratitude for many kindnesses of his so many years ago—for so many stimulating conversations and . . . . Continue Reading »

Joseph Bottum writes: After six years of President Bush”thought by nearly every observer to be the most socially conservative president of recent decades”where does social conservatism stand? No one can deny there have been some bright spots: the defeat of the Democrats’ Senate leader Tom . . . . Continue Reading »

As we approach George Washington’s birthday¯so often lost these days in the good shopping bargains of a long holiday weekend¯it seems fitting to celebrate the whole man Washington was in light of the hottest issue in the world just now, religion. Most historians of the last hundred years have . . . . Continue Reading »

As a general rule, the New York Times tries so hard to discredit Jewish and Christian morality that it is foolish to trust any of its articles purporting to describe Census Bureau statistics, especially when the latter involve marriage and family. It is best to treat analyses appearing in the Times . . . . Continue Reading »

As an American, far away, with a deep love for Poland, my deepest sorrow is felt for all the citizens of Poland, for the Polish church, and even for the now-resigned archbishop and his family.There were so many heroic acts by so many people in Poland and its neighboring countries during the Soviet . . . . Continue Reading »

Aristotle wrote that the criterion of good moral action is not a principle or a law so much as "the man of practical wisdom"¯that is, the person in your environment who habitually makes the wisest and bravest decisions of anyone else you know. Aristotle mentions, in his context, . . . . Continue Reading »

The Faiths of the Founding Fathers by David L. Holmes. Oxford University Press, 240 pages, $20. American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation by Jon Meacham. Random House, 416 pages, $23.95. There seems to be a real panic out there in Secular Land. Some endow the . . . . Continue Reading »

It is hard to believe that thirty-five years have gone by since the long summer of 1971, when I was writing the first edition of The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics (published in April 1972). The world has changed a great deal since then. Some of the goals I set out to promote in that book came to . . . . Continue Reading »