About a decade ago, I would go to a party, get drunk off the kind of alcohol that’s sold in plastic bottles, snort up some dubious research chemicals, and then discover to my horror that I’d just spent the last hour talking to a complete stranger at a high clip about the labor theory of value. I . . . . Continue Reading »
The ongoing Roman celebration of the Casaroli Ostpolitik as a triumph for Vatican diplomacy and a model for the future is sheer mythmaking—and damaging mythmaking at that. Continue Reading »
Colonel Ryszard Kukliński took a courageous stand against communism’s culture of death, knowing that freedom is never cost-free. Continue Reading »
Thousands of Cubans have taken to the streets from one end of the island to the other, chanting “liberty,” “down with the dictatorship,” and “down with communism.” Continue Reading »
Looking back on his time as a Cuban-trained communist revolutionary, the French writer Régis Debray recalled that Chile’s Marxist president used to display on his desk a photo of guerrilla leader Che Guevara, inscribed: “To Salvador Allende, who is headed to the same place by a different . . . . Continue Reading »
The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, raised from the dead and led by such a powerful witness, is a living testament to the power of faith. Continue Reading »
Last December, while most of us were watching the presidential election lumber toward its disastrous conclusion, two aged representatives of a very different political era died. One of the deceased was David Cornwell, better known as John le Carré, the pen name he used while writing novels set in . . . . Continue Reading »
Attempts to defend the Vatican’s shameful reluctance to support beleaguered Chinese Catholics remain unpersuasive, even ludicrous. Continue Reading »
After being denounced during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) as inconsistent with Marxist ideals, Confucianism has made an astonishing return to official favor in China. In 2010, I participated in the first Nishan Forum, which marked a dramatic and orchestrated confirmation that Confucian . . . . Continue Reading »
In 1951, security forces in communist Czechoslovakia arrested Silvester Krčméry—and as they were taking him away, he burst out laughing. The young physician knew what he was about to face: years behind bars, shattering physical and mental torture, the loss of his professional career. Yet . . . . Continue Reading »
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