Recently, my cousin Keena’s husband of nearly thirty years died after a two-year fight with colon cancer. I was glad to attend the funeral and spend time with her and the family afterward. Mourning with those who mourn is a command we ought to take seriously, for it carries its own blessings, even if we [...]
Yes, we Catholics are all aware of the problems plaguing Holy Mother Church right now. So, why then do we persist? Perhaps one way of addressing this question is to focus on the precise nature of what ecclesial Christians believe about the Church. Many Christians are scandalized or crying “I told you so” in the [...]
While there is a good deal of cant about how paying higher taxes is “patriotic,” most people instinctively recoil from taxes and don’t hesitate to avoid paying any more than they have to. So, is taxation moral? Income tax season is mostly over. For our family it just ended a week ago when the IRS [...]
Donald Trump has a second chance, with a much better understanding of how things work in Washington and whom to trust there, to have a transformative presidency. The absurdity is finally over. Almost. The insanity of the national Democrats we have seen over the last four years, particularly since Donald Trump’s November defeat of Kamala [...]
A professional philosopher my friend Siobhan Nash-Marshall certainly was. But her own love of wisdom included the desire to change the world as well as interpret it. She constantly attempted to do so according to the wisdom that is foolishness to men. Perhaps it was because she was the child of diplomats and had learned [...]
Margaret Ellsberg’s volume contains her own biographical, critical, and indeed spiritual understanding of Gerard Manley Hopkins, a poet whose brilliant lines were not appreciated in his time and whose life included both the glory and agony of the Christ he served. The Gospel in Gerard Manley Hopkins: Selections from His Poems, Letters, Journals, and Spiritual [...]
Like a crooked district attorney who throws as many charges as possible against a defendant, hoping that some of them will stick, I as a teacher throw as many texts and topics at the students as possible without overloading them. Thus, one can see what works and what doesn’t—but never be short of material. “We [...]
The best poems are always going to be about common things. What is uncommon is always the vision of the poet, made visible to us in words that skip along and yet find a way of stopping the reader so that he may examine his own path and think about new ones. Elizabeth Marshall's "Pathways: [...]
There is too much despair in the world. Yet Christ bids us be of good cheer, for he says that he has “overcome the world.” Because he has won the war, we can be confident in fighting the battle of our lives so that we and those we love can find salvation. This Lenten season [...]
Robin Hood's legend lives on as a model for all who try to serve God when government, the rich, and, all too often, those vowed to God’s service explicitly are fighting against us. The Adventures of Robin Hood by Roger Lancelyn Green, illustrations by Arthur Hall (Puffin Books, 2010, 294 pages) The most difficult conflicts [...]
While Texas secession would indeed mean that it was no longer one of the states in the union, author T.L. Hulsey has bigger fish to fry than merely separating Texas from California, Minnesota, and New York. What he wants is to start again as the Founders did, but better. The Constitution of Non-State Government: Field [...]
Even in the midst of circumstances we consider less than ideal—a degraded and hostile culture, broken families—the Spirit of the Lord works so that we are not alone. He raises up children of the Father who want to be conformed to the Son in their own lives and to witness to the truth. They are [...]
Despite making fun of the nature of tech company perfidy and internet culture, “The Mitchells vs. The Machines,” like too many animated films, may simply add to the inability of its younger viewers to follow a story for more than a minute. I should have known. The ad that popped up for The Mitchells vs. [...]
Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays were both "Godded-up" to an extreme degree, treated at various times as if they could not err, treatment that author Allen Barra thinks contributed to the fact that neither man ever really grew up. Mickey and Willie: Mantle and Mays, the Parallel Lives of Baseball’s Golden Age, By Allen Barra [...]