Joseph Bottum

Is it just my imagination or has Robertson Davies faded considerably over the past decade? I was sick in bed the middle of last week and, in my convalescence, pulled down a couple of his early novels to read¯only to be struck by how rarely one hears his name anymore. Before he died in 1995 at . . . . Continue Reading »

As a special bonus for Columbus Day weekend, we’re making available here on our website a second article from the October issue of First Things . It’s called " When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano: Catholic Culture in America ," an account of the curious Catholic . . . . Continue Reading »

IThe swallows would swirl through San Juan Capistrano, rising like a mist from the sea every March 19. Or so the legend goes. In fact, the blue-feathered birds sometimes reached California as early as mid-February, and when they arrived at the end of their long trek from Argentina, they would infest . . . . Continue Reading »

I was hunting this weekend for a line from James Farl Powers¯J.F. Powers, as he signed himself¯and got caught again in the strength of his prose. Powers is such a curious figure: the greatest of the writers in the 1950s American Catholic renaissance, and the most faded. After his death in . . . . Continue Reading »

Even after Ross Douthat’s post and mine , there may be more to unravel from the new Pew poll on the political parties and religion.I wrote, as though it were perfectly self-evident, "We cannot¯we should not¯have a party so strongly identified with opposition to religious . . . . Continue Reading »

The Associated Press carried an item yesterday ¯here’s a copy from Forbes ¯that mentioned First Things . Actually, it was an unimportant wire story about Supreme Court justices’ required financial statements for 2005. It did contain this sentence, however: "Scalia . . . . Continue Reading »

As the Power Line blog points out, you’d be hard pressed to find a greater opposition in headlines than the ones about the new Pew study on politics and religion. The New York Times has it: "In Poll, G.O.P. Slips as a Friend of Religion." And the Washington Times insists: "Few . . . . Continue Reading »

Georgetown University has rediscovered its Catholicism. The nation’s oldest Catholic school, the flagship of Jesuit education in America, has been a sad topic among American Catholics for some time now. Crucifixes removed from classrooms, a lay president, pro-abortion activity, a general . . . . Continue Reading »

Commonweal magazine has posted an item on its blog, replying to my item replying to their items ( here and here ), replying to Charlotte Allen’s item , replying to the last issue of the print version of Commonweal ¯and anyone who can follow all that is smarter than your average bear. I . . . . Continue Reading »

Charlotte, you may like the Commonweal crowd, even while you were criticizing their pages . For that matter, I like them; the editor, Paul Baumann, in particular, has always seemed a great guy to go get a drink with. But you need to remember that they hate you¯and me and everybody associated . . . . Continue Reading »