Richard John Neuhaus

All Souls Day, November 2, is for the ordinary folk. The "faithful departed" means all our brothers and sisters in Christ, including evangelical Protestants. (Some are less faithful than others, and, of course, the same is true of Catholics.) Evangelicals are seen as the especially . . . . Continue Reading »

Work hard, play by the rules, and go to church. The result will be that, by every measure of human well-being, you and your family will be better off. But you knew that. The problem is how to get people to do that. Sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox of the University of Virginia reports on recent . . . . Continue Reading »

Walter Benjamin’s is a name to be conjured with in the academic disciplines where "theory" is king. A Jew and a Marxist, he was killed in 1940 while trying to escape Germany, having been rather late in catching on to what the Nazis were up to. Benjamin is not for bedtime reading. . . . . Continue Reading »

The streets of New York are clergy-friendly. In my limited experience, more so than other world cities. Of course, Rome doesn’t count. There one might get the impression that the Church is suffering from a superfluity rather than a shortage of priests. Greet all the priests and sisters you . . . . Continue Reading »

It has been suggested to me that this wedding homily might be of more general interest. Perhaps you will agree. I might add that Gwyneth is the daughter of George and Joan Weigel. She and Robert are now serving medical internships at Johns Hopkins. In the Name of the + Father, and of the Son, and . . . . Continue Reading »

The Really Poor There is a very big and very important argument underway about what is to be done, if anything can be done, about the really poor of the world. An admirably lucid and informed contribution to the argument is Paul Collier’s The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are . . . . Continue Reading »

It’s an odd thing about us transplanted Canadians. In truth, most of my siblings and I (there are eight children) were born in Canada of American citizens, which gives us dual citizenship. The odd thing is that we are among the relatively few Americans who regularly keep an eye on things . . . . Continue Reading »

The English language is so very rich, and not least when it comes to language about language. I confess to having a weakness for the aphorism. I like to quote them and have even tried my hand at a few. A friend tells me I mean epigram, not aphorism. Maybe so, but the distinctions are subtle. It . . . . Continue Reading »

On July 31, I posted here " A Respectful Word on Episcopal Competence ." Bishop Thomas Wenski of Orlando, Florida, who is head of the bishops’ Committee on International Policy, then offered an equally respectful response on August 7. In his response, he underscored what he described . . . . Continue Reading »

The word competence has several meanings, most of which congregate around ability and authority . It is not clear which meaning is pertinent to the announcement that the national bishops’ conference will be meeting with congressional Democrats who are Catholics in order to devise a way to . . . . Continue Reading »