First Links — 12.13.12

The Reawakening of the Church in France Sandro Magister, Chisea.it Was the Potato Famine a Genocidal Plot? Y.F., The Economist Why Did Joseph Plan to Divorce Mary? Jimmy Akin, National Catholic Register So Progressive It’s Conservative Emily Matchar, The Atlantic Called to the Unbidden Jason . . . . Continue Reading »

The Unfair Burden On Tim Scott

There seems to be a fair amount of national interest in who will replace Jim DeMint in the Senate. A lot of this interest focuses on Representative Tim Scott. I remember people talking about who would be appointed to replace retiring Republican Senator Jim Ensign from Nevada. Whoever was appointed . . . . Continue Reading »

Obituaries for Earthbound Pets

A few years back, First Things published a somewhat incredulous  While We’re At It entry noticing the curiously named Eternal Earth-Bound Pets, a service that promised to take care of pets left behind after the rapture. (It was recently confirmed to be satire by the proprietor, who . . . . Continue Reading »

Cezanne and the Post-Christian Taste for Art

Our friend and writer Maureen Mullarkey examines a new biographer of Cézanne who, “abandoning scholarly obligation to periods of taste different from his own . . . declares allegiance to the dashing Young Turks against the old duffers” and “gratifies the susceptibilities of . . . . Continue Reading »

Glenn Beck Goes Wobbly on Marriage

Rod Dreher thinks the fight to stop same-sex marriage is lost. I think he is wrong about that but Rod is annoyed that Glenn Beck—-who has thrown in the towel on marriage, maybe he never had the towel in the first place—-gets things so wrong about marriage and the law and the . . . . Continue Reading »

The Novelist’s Blank Screen Mary

In  Not Your Mother , the Catholic apologist Mark Shea examines, with a good bit of rhetorical flourish, the Irish novelist Colm Tóibín’s inevitably praised (see  Edmund White’s review in the Irish Times and the review in the  Guardian )  The . . . . Continue Reading »