Matthew Schmitz

O n a Saturday afternoon, I survey the offerings of the Bedford Cheese Shop. This gourmet store at the center of hip Brooklyn bills itself as being “based on old-world ideals with a loyalty to our family . . . dedicated to the time honored traditions of the culinary and agricultural world.” . . . . Continue Reading »

What Was Before by martin mosebach translated by kári driscoll seagull, 248 pages, $27.50A woman asks a man what his life had been like before they met, and he tells her of a glittering world now gone: A group of well-to-do Germans gathers for poolside parties in the countryside near Frankfurt, . . . . Continue Reading »

The strange case of Gloria Thurn and Taxis. Continue Reading »

Conflating respectability with righteousness. Continue Reading »

What mercy really means. Continue Reading »

From cape to cowl. Continue Reading »

How to honor them both. Continue Reading »

1 Paul begat Augustine;2 Augustine begat Thomas, 3 Bonaventure, Bernard, Anselm, Boethius,4 And Scotus, who prospered before his brothers.5 Forsooth the son of Scotus was Ockham.6 And the sons of Ockham were Luther and Calvin.7 And their sons were Division and . . . . Continue Reading »

Jean Danielou died in disgrace. In 1974, at age sixty-nine, the noted advisor to the Second Vatican Council who had been made a cardinal by Pope Paul VI was found dead in the home of a Parisian prostitute. France’s Catholic bishops, trying to calm rumors, published a letter in Le Monde saying that . . . . Continue Reading »

I follow both David Gibson, a reporter for Religion News Service, and Mollie Hemingway, a writer for the Federalist, on Twitter. Like many of those who do, I have noticed a pattern in which Hemingway sends out a tweet that is not addressed to Gibson to which he nonetheless replies—not to . . . . Continue Reading »