Joseph Bottum

Who, even among scholars in the field, could keep up with the flood of attacks on Pius XII that began in the late 1990s? John Cornwell gave us Hitler’s Pope , and Michael Phayer followed with The Catholic Church and the Holocaust . David Kertzer brought charges against Pius XII in The Popes . . . . Continue Reading »

The Degaev Affair: Terror and Treason in Tsarist Russia By Richard Pipes Yale University Press. 153 pp. $22.95 Once upon a time”well, actually, it was in 1897, on the campus of the public university that the citizens of South Dakota had just built in the town of Vermillion to express their . . . . Continue Reading »

I burn for all good heresy in this ungodly town. If I had any hope to raise I’d tear cathedrals down. I’d show the bishop priestly crimes except that he is blind. I’d damn the Protestants to hell if only they would mind. George Fox rebuked our dainty tread by kicking off his . . . . Continue Reading »

There is little in my life I regret as much as that I would not stay for just one cookie, just one cup of tea. . . . . . Continue Reading »

Thanksgiving was always tense while I was growing up, and I don’t know why. Christmas, now—Christmas was mostly fun and presents and carols and laughter, as I remember. But Thanksgiving was arguments and huffs and recriminations and doors slamming and one indistinguishable great-uncle or . . . . Continue Reading »

We meet our griefs again when work is through and do with words what little words can do. A stranger weeps beside us through the night. Beneath our pleasant sun, we never knew the dark that hates the sky for being bright. We thought to build a garden without rue, to climb and, all-beloved, to reach . . . . Continue Reading »

On Sunday, October 7, as the United States began at last its air strikes against the Taliban, I was on an airplane, more than twenty thousand feet above the Midwestern plains”that height from which the square-edged farms and checkerboarded fields seem not quite real: a toy land, a counterpane . . . . Continue Reading »

On April 20th, at around 11:30 in the morning, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked into Columbine High School in suburban Littleton, Colorado, armed with pipe bombs and at least seven guns. After killing a student on the lawn and another in the hallway, they moved to the library, where they . . . . Continue Reading »

Say, my love, this world is whole: a windfall here beneath the bole. Or hold, my love, love’s time is now: a flourish, then the fruit along the bough. But O, my love, how hard to hold bare thoughts of love in winter’s cold. The apple limbs are bent and gray. My love, O Christ, my love . . . . Continue Reading »

From faded grass beneath the bole the last red windfall hunted down, last marigold, last aster blown, the dingy shades of autumn fall and tinctures drown.The orange-flash hunters go to ground; a gray reed takes the wind and sways. Season of death and fruitlessness: Green sea-ducks flee the leaden . . . . Continue Reading »