Michael Novak

In about March or April of 1968 (is it really so many years ago?), I received a call in my Stanford office asking me whether I could meet with Robert F. Kennedy in San Francisco on his first trip to the Commonwealth as a presidential candidate. I said yes, for Bobby was already my favorite among . . . . Continue Reading »

I was very glad to see this little page on the Notre Dame website . My friend Charley and I put up this statue of Saint Therese in the spring of 1948, and I am thrilled to see devotion before it still picking up. Charley Cingolani was a high school sophomore, and I a freshman, at the time. The . . . . Continue Reading »

Allow me to pick up a thread I began to weave in our last conversation . My experience is that believers and unbelievers live in a darkness that is remarkably the same. More than once I have been in conversation with a respected scholar who confessed to me that he would like very much to believe in . . . . Continue Reading »

Writers who call themselves atheists have often surprised me by their reasons for not believing in God. In the long history of humanity, of course, their unbelief is an anomaly, a distinctly minority position. Even Clarence Darrow once said that he certainly did not believe in the Jewish or . . . . Continue Reading »

A new survey of 178 nations by the University of Leicester in England reports that the Danes are the happiest people in the world, followed by the Swiss, Austrians, and Icelanders, etc. Happiness is correlated with wealth and education, the study suggests. “Here we have social security, so . . . . Continue Reading »

A friend asks if I know the difference between a saint and a martyr: A saint is someone who radiates goodness and bears no faults. A martyr is someone who lives with a saint. (Access contributors’ biographies by clicking here .) . . . . Continue Reading »

Beer Blessing From the Rituale Romanum (no 58) Bene+dic, Domine, creaturam istam cerevisae, quam ex adipe frumenti producere dignatus es: ut sit remedium salutare humano generi: et praesta per invocationem nominis tui sancti, ut, quicumque ex ea biberint, sanitatem corporis, et animae tutelam . . . . Continue Reading »

People who call themselves atheists often say rather strange things about people with faith¯things like, "Well, if you need the comfort, go on and believe." An odd notion, that there is "comfort" in faith. Serious believers often don’t find it so. Actually, it has . . . . Continue Reading »

AEI Book Forum¯March 6, 2006 Who Was Washington’s God? The need for this book stems from the lack of interest in religion on the part of most biographers of Washington, especially since World War II. The occasion for this book was a magnificent outdoor candlelight dinner on the veranda . . . . Continue Reading »

A pair of articles on the justice of the Iraq war have appeared on the website Right Reason , in the form of a review of a new book bitterly opposing the war, President Bush, and the neoconservatives. The book’s title typifies the seriousness of the essays it includes: NeoCONNED . The . . . . Continue Reading »