R. R. Reno

Francis Bacon once wrote, "Read not to contradict and confute; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider." The sentence exaggerates. Some books are maligne and require contradiction. As Dr. Johnson knew, talk is one of the pleasures of life, and if books enrich . . . . Continue Reading »

Moses made a mistake. He could have been a broadminded model for our liberal culture, but he ended up hopelessly partisan. He started out with an impartial outlook, but he fell under the power of a tribal deity who used him to create an exclusivist sect intoxicated with the fantasy of redemptive . . . . Continue Reading »

Twentieth-Century Catholic Theologians: From Chenu to Ratzinger by fergus kerr blackwell, 240 pages, $29.95 Over the last decade, a Scottish Dominican named Fergus Kerr has produced a series of books designed to orient readers to contemporary trends. In the 1997 Immortal Longings, he discussed a . . . . Continue Reading »

I don’t think many would dispute that Philip Rieff was one of the most perceptive and creative intellectuals of the second half of the twentieth century. His justly famous 1959 Freud: The Mind of the Moralist has never gone out of print, and rightly so, because it remains the definitive . . . . Continue Reading »

The most recent number of The Intercollegiate Review, published by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, features a symposium marking the twentieth anniversary of the publication of Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind. Has it really been that long?Bloom’s book was a real sensation . . . . Continue Reading »

Two recent trips to two very different art exhibits provoked some gloomy thoughts about our times. Earlier in the fall, I visited New York City. An art-curator friend who has tried to warm me to contemporary art suggested a visit to the Leslie Tonkonow Gallery in Chelsea. Klaus Ottmann, a curator . . . . Continue Reading »

In Prince Caspian, the third volume of C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, a modern young prince has rediscovered Old Narnia. He tries to restore the damaged realm, but the power of the wicked usurper, his uncle, is too great, and Prince Caspian’s motley army of true believers is forced to . . . . Continue Reading »

Whether or not one agrees with the pope’s historical analysis of de-Hellenization, he is surely right about its profound and deleterious influence. It is plainly the case that most Western intellectuals view Christianity in the same way that Emperor Manuel II Paleologus viewed Islam¯as a . . . . Continue Reading »

U.S. New & World Report has just published its annual rankings of higher education. In addition to calling the horse race for No. 1 university, the magazine also puts out rankings of graduate programs. By their reckoning, the best place to study political theory is Harvard. Harvard is tied with . . . . Continue Reading »

In a recent article in the Christian Century , Jason Byassee tells the stories of theologians who recently left their Protestant denominations and were received into the Catholic Church ( "Going Catholic: Six Journeys to Rome," August 22, 2006 ). Byassee does a fine and sympathetic job . . . . Continue Reading »