Richard Neuhaus described something I once wrote for First Things magazine as “winsomely forceful.” I thought that was an unusually charming turn of phrase, he was good at them, and it honestly was the tone I tried to achieve in my “uninformed” piece last Thursday on immigration. For those of you who missed last week’s column due to life threatening illness or because you had to get the dog wormed (the only plausible reasons I can imagine for skipping my golden prose) I talked about illegal immigration … Continue Reading»
Last week the state of Arizona executed Eric John King for two murders that occurred during a robbery in December 1989 that netted $72. On the same day the prelates of the Arizona Catholic Conference released a statement expressing vehement opposition to the death penalty. “We firmly hold that capital punishment is state-sanctioned vengeance,” said the bishops, “that is not in keeping with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” I confess that these claims left me flabbergasted… . Continue Reading»
In the fall of 2007, I spent a week in Spain, giving lectures, meeting with Spanish Catholic leaders, and making a hair-raising climb up several hundred scaffolding stairs to the top of Antoni Gaudi’s Basilica of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona”preceded by Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, John Paul II’s longtime secretary, who was doing the trip in a cassock (after confessing to me, sotto voce, that he wasn’t too fond of heights)! … Continue Reading»
Having made my first promises in 2002 (after three years of dallying), next year I will celebrate ten years as a fully professed Benedictine Oblate. I’m sure my Holy Father Benedict is rolling his eyes, and thinking, “Oh, bully, kid, let me get my shoes and I’ll do a jig for you. Have you gotten that Rule down, yet?” Errr, well, no, Father. Not yet. Especially not that part about receiving all guests as Christ… . Continue Reading»
Back in the days of Ronald Reagan, when I was a liberal and (by my own current estimation) a heathen, I was convinced that he was the anti-Christ. After all, he had six letters in each of his names. He was dismantling FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society. He was causing the deaths of innocent children by cutting their mothers’ food stamps. He was building an arsenal that would destroy the earth… . Continue Reading»
What makes First ThingsFirst Things? It’s a question I’ve puzzled over during the decade or so that I’ve been associated with the magazine. The question has become quite a bit more urgent for me in the last couple months. Being appointed the new editor wonderfully concentrates the mind. The first thing to say about First Things is that it stands for the conviction … . Continue Reading»
My high school teachers liked to offer aphorisms to initiate discussion”“Your reputation is your most valuable possession” was a popular one, and another, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” That one in particular caught my attention because it sounded clever but not entirely true; and, like an unresolved chord, it begged for a sweeter-sounding conclusion… . Continue Reading»
April is National Poetry Month in the United States, and to be honest, I am somewhat ambivalent about the whole thing. National months have one of two purposes: Either they call attention to often ignored causes or products or they attempt to atone for past sins… . Continue Reading»
Let me say right from the beginning I do not know what I am talking about. Oh, sure, I did some research but everything goes ten different ways on this topic and at the end of it I knew less than I did at the start”which was nothing. Should anyone in the comments section below challenge me to a battle of wits, fair warning, I am unarmed. … Continue Reading»
There is nothing inherently good about baseball, at least not in a spiritual sense. It doesn’t make men better in and of itself. There is no dogma in baseball. There is no creed. And, as we all know, there is no crying in baseball, either. But that’s not the end of it … Continue Reading»
