Youve likely heard the field of economics referred to as “the dismal science.” And if you took a course in macroeconomics you probably recognize that the appellation was given by the Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle. But what few people realize is that Carlyle coined the term in an 1849 magazine article … Continue Reading »
Three weeks have passed since the Popes visit to Great Britain, and memories of it still fill my mind, because it was a triumph few had expected. Of all the remarkable things I saw, while blogging about it for First Things, nothing more surprised me than this … Continue Reading »
Two postcard portraits of the recently-beatified John Henry Newman have graced my office for years. One is a miniature painted by Sir William Charles Ross in 1845, the year of Newmans reception into the Catholic Church. The second, by Emmeline Dean, gives us the aged cardinal, a year before his death in 1890, in cardinalatial house cassock and walking stick… . Continue Reading »
Michael Novak and his work during the past thirty-five years have been abundantly feted. Celebrants have expounded on his brilliance, his prolificacy, and his influence. But brilliance and industriousness, although highly important virtues, are not nearly as rare as the total Novak phenomenon… . Continue Reading »
In the weeks leading up to the beatification of John Henry Newman, more
than one writer asked whether the Anglican convert might be embraced by
some, particularly by progressives, as the patron saint of
dissenters. Newmans willingness to launch his spacious intellect into debate within the church … Continue Reading »
Imagine an organization”a bowling league, say, formed by a group of people who get together simply because they like to bowl. And imagine that, over time, the demands and rewards of being the organizers of a bowling league begin to grow, particularly as the members are drawn into organizing leagues for other sports … Continue Reading »
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a column in which I took exception”humorously, I thought”to the popular American conceit of describing ours as the greatest nation on Earth (I proposed Bhutan as a worthier claimant to that title, though I had also toyed with arguing the case for Norway, New Zealand, or Fiji)… . Continue Reading »
Edmund Gosses books are lovely to read but eminently forgettable. A winsome writer, fine stylist, poets of sorts, essayist, and arbiter of taste in the early decades of the twentieth century, he flourished at the center of London literary circles, and was eventually knighted for his cultural contributions… . Continue Reading »
With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of mans mind, which has always been developed from the mind of lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy, wrote Charles Darwin… . Continue Reading »
Last Friday, September 24, the archbishop of Denver, Charles J. Chaput, gave a talk to a conference of the Religion Newswriters Association. Called Religion, Journalism, and the New American Orthodoxy, it was an intelligent and sophisticated analysis”and really, quite uncontroversial in its conclusion, although you wouldn’t know that from the response of the religion reporters who were present… . Continue Reading »