As the West goes ever faster through the process of de-Christianization, the Church approximates ever more the situation of the Church before Constantine, God’s people on earth challenging and converting the pagan culture and empire with which it was often at odds. Indeed, although we often think too romantically about it, the Church before Constantine endured persecutions great and small, official and unofficial, sporadic and sustained, local and universal… . Continue Reading»
Perhaps the most beloved of Christmas movies, Frank Capra’s sleeper classic It’s a Wonderful Life has inevitably become a target of seasonal, iconoclastic culture-warmongering. As Christmas approaches, essays crop up in media outlets baldly inverting the film’s moral universe, ripping George Bailey and small-town Bedford Falls, and even rehabilitating villainous Mr. Potter and the nightmare alternative reality of Pottersville… . Continue Reading»
The federal government paused at the edge of the fiscal cliff and decided to look before it leapt. Last week the Senate passed a compromise bill, which raised some taxes and postponed most discussion about spending cuts, and the House moaned and complained and finally decided to pass the bill too. Then President Obama had his autopen sign the bill into law, as he headed back to Hawaii to finish his Christmas vacation… . Continue Reading»
The Supreme Court’s decision to hear arguments about the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California’s Proposition 8 guarantees that the debate over marriage will be at the forefront of American public life for the foreseeable future. DOMA defines marriage as the legal union of one man and one woman for purposes of federal law (it says nothing about what states may or may not define as marriage)… . Continue Reading»
In his weekly column at the Washington Post, Marc A. Thiessen, a fellow with the American Enterprise Institute, recently offered an interesting appreciation of Barack Obama, surprising in its suggestion that his Republican friends be more like our extremely driven, results-oriented president. He writes … Continue Reading»
My friend’s six-year-old son wanted to be God the Father in the Christmas pageant. He reasoned that he was too old to play the second person of the Trinity, whose part in any case had been assigned to a doll. Continue Reading »
I keep a little black book of notes, thought-sketches, and quotations. It’s my slapdash storage device for ideas. Now and then I reread the pages, and when I do I’m reminded yet again that nine tenths of mental progress comes when we circle back and think old thoughts again. Enduring truths are often fugitive. They need to be made permanent residents in our minds by regular intervals of remembrance… . Continue Reading»
National Championship. Ever since it was announced that the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the Alabama Crimson Tide would play in the Bowl Championship Series title game Monday night, I’ve been trying to get my head around those two words. As a Notre Dame alumnus and lifelong fan, “national championship” sounds so foreign, so unreal, after decades of mediocre football with a few teases of success… . Continue Reading»
Last week, I finished a book manuscript. During the last two weeks of work, I spent nearly every waking hour in front of a computer screen, reviewing notes, examining a handful of remaining sources. It snowed, I’m told, and there was snow on the ground to prove it, but I was submerged too deep to notice. Several days I realized late in the morning that I was still wearing my bathrobe. I surfaced for meals and to grab another cup of coffee, but my mind was never fully engaged with anything besides the book… . Continue Reading»
The causes of homosexuality are infamously difficult to pin down. Science (in the American Psychological Association) and religion (in the Catechism of the Catholic Church) have agreed that, in the current state of things, there is no single cause to which we can definitively point and say, “Here, we have found it!” Indeed, in some circles, the discussion is about homosexualities, to remain open to the possibility that one person’s homosexuality might not have the same origin as another person’s homosexuality… . Continue Reading»
