Rusty Reno asked me why we can’t build like Ralph Adams Cram envisioned. The answer to that question, I think, is the architectural equivalent to what Reno himself said about education: “Fearful of living in dreams and falling under the sway of ideologies, we have committed ourselves to . . . . Continue Reading »
“The liturgy by grace changes lives,” writes Father George Rutler in today’s second “On the Square” offering, The Liturgical Experts’ Long Tassels , commenting on the recent final approval of the new translation of the Catholic liturgy. But there are limits to . . . . Continue Reading »
People are taking Ayn Rand seriously—as a guide to who we are and what we’re supposed to do—again. But she has to be the worst self-help guide ever. As this pithy but deep analysis shows, she’s all about self-deceptive and self-destructive liberation from who we are by . . . . Continue Reading »
So I thought I’d link the astute Pete S.’s analysis on why Obama will probably prevail in 2012, even if the economy doesn’t rebound in some Reaganesque way. Pete, ever the statesman, adds that the Republicans could still win with a persuasive message, an articulate, attractive, . . . . Continue Reading »
One of the central tropes of Islamic responses to Christianity is that the Qur’an is not the Muslim equivalent of the Christian scriptures, but of Christ. Thus Mahmoud A. Ayoub says:The Qur’an is, for Muslims, the literal and timeless divine Word which entered our time. It became a book . . . . Continue Reading »
The public response to two movies on artificial insemination, including The Switch , just out and not doing well, tells us something about the way Americans feel about the subject, writes Mary Rose Somarriba in Artificially Conceiving a Bad Romantic Comedy . And they’re on to something, she . . . . Continue Reading »
America tends to import its key religious figures. That was the lesson I learned while trying to compile a last week’s list of most influential native-born religious figures . Many readers grumbled that the arbitrary criteria excluded some of the most important men and women in . . . . Continue Reading »
My alma mater, the University of Notre Dame, released an Institutional Statement Supporting the Choice for Life on 8 April 2010:Consistent with the teaching of the Catholic Church on such issues as abortion, research involving human embryos, euthanasia, the death penalty, and other related life . . . . Continue Reading »
I quoted Hadley Arkes, one of the founding members of the magazine’s board, in The Lost Telos of Sexuality below. Readers interested in his recent entry into the Catholic Church will want to read an interview with him just out in the National Catholic Register . Among other things he says in . . . . Continue Reading »
As readers of my thoughts on Islam and American politics may have suspected, I’ve been beating my head against the wall lately, trying to understand why American conservatism allows itself to be ideologically outmaneuvered by liberalism, and this even as conservatism wins elections. But . . . . Continue Reading »
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