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Ambiguously Catholic

From the June/July 2021 Print Edition

Is this liberal Catholicism’s big moment? In the Oval Office, a pro-abortion president sits with a photograph of the Holy Father displayed proudly over his left shoulder. In Germany, Europe’s most powerful bishops’ conference ­presses ahead with its “synodal path,” reassessing doctrine on . . . . Continue Reading »

Learning by Heart

From the May 2021 Print Edition

In Darwin, Australia, sometime in 1958, an old man lay dying in hospital. He asked to see—of all people—the British writer ­Malcolm Muggeridge. They didn’t know each other, but ­Muggeridge was touring Australia and the old man had heard him on the radio. As ­Muggeridge recalled it, . . . . Continue Reading »

Dark Greene

From the March 2021 Print Edition

Readers of Russian Roulette: The Life and Times of Graham Greene may finish the book with a sense of relief. That isn’t the fault of the biographer Richard Greene (no relation), who has done an impressive job of tying together the many strands of the novelist’s life. It’s just that . . . . Continue Reading »

Becket and His Critics

From the January 2021 Print Edition

The late philosopher Roger Scruton once told a ­Guardian journalist that he thought he had been “too soft” over the course of his life. The interviewer was taken aback: Scruton was known as a scourge of political correctness and academic fashion. But as Scruton explained: “I’ve tended . . . . Continue Reading »

The Individualist

From the January 2020 Print Edition

On February 2, 2018, seven members of a group called Bristol Antifascists assembled outside a lecture hall at the University of the West of England in Bristol. They donned balaclavas or dark glasses, according to taste, and entered through the double doors at the back of the hall. “No platform for . . . . Continue Reading »