Where are the Flannery O’Connors and Evelyn Waughs of our day, who can be witty about wickedness and plant their theology in the thicket of character, the turns of a plot, and the twist of a knife? Where are the writers who can be both entertaining and enlightening? A Bloody Habit by Eleanor Bourg Nicholson [...]
Like Saint Benedict we’re not trying to change the whole world. We’re simply doing what we can with what we have where we are. I first encountered Saint Benedict while I was a student at Oxford. I had enrolled to train as a priest in the Church of England, but a Catholic woman in the [...]
Graham Greene’s morality tales are complex, subtle, and intricate. They horrify us not only in the puzzle of solving the crime, but in the more profound puzzle of good and evil, death and damnation, life and love, sin and salvation… Film noir means ‘Black Film’, and in the classic film noir all is dark. A [...]
René Girard gave the intellectual universe a way of seeing old truths in a new way and new truths through an old lens. As a result, his work has already been hugely influential in a range of disciplines, both academic and cultural… Evolution of Desire: A Life of René Girard by Cynthia L. Haven (346 [...]
The three vows of the Benedictine monk are obedience, stability, and conversion of life. In our own ways, we can follow this example, making it real by paying attention to prayer, cracking the books in solid study, and rolling up our sleeves in the honest, hard work of rebuilding what has fallen into despair and [...]
Humanity is mystified by Love. All humans experience it. None can explain it. The mysterious genesis of this strange gift, the wondrous beginnings of this bizarre quality within the human heart prompts the greatest quest of all: the quest for Love… My friend Carol is a writer of medical romantic fiction. This does not mean [...]
C.S. Lewis once observed that we don’t need more Christian books, we need more Christian writers. In other words, people of faith who have the gift should write not just worthy books on prayer. They should write novels and children’s stories and cookbooks and travel books, fantasy, fiction, poetry, and drama. His point was that [...]
In modern America, all the dystopian horrors exist hand-in-hand with what seems like one perpetual theme-park existence. The war, torture, abortions, castrations, murders, suicides, drug addiction, homelessness, and medical horrors reside side-by-side with the smiling face of America, where everyone has perfect teeth and waves out a cheerful, “Have a nice day!”… Having just re-read [...]
Books bequeath a poetic knowledge that human beings simply cannot obtain in any other way. As long as souls long for the preservation of wisdom, for a shared conversation that spans time and place, we will have books… Joshua Hren is an Assistant Director of the Honors College at Belmont Abbey and Editor-in-Chief of Wiseblood [...]
What shall we make of filmmakers who twist history for propaganda purposes? In an extreme way, they are doing what all historians do: They are not only recording history, they are also interpreting it—and can history be done without interpreting the facts?… Some time ago I watched a fascinating documentary on the assassination of President [...]
Two conservative authors have assessed Pope Francis’ pontificate with devastating results… Lost Shepherd: How Pope Francis is Misleading His Flock by Philip Lawler (256 pages, Gateway Editions, 2018) To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism by Ross Douthat (256 pages, Simon & Schuster, 2018) Five years into his papacy and poor Pope Francis is [...]
Why are so many American white men killing themselves and others? And what’s to be done about this phenomenon?… Not long ago I was traveling back from a speaking engagement when I pulled into a Waffle House for breakfast. Waffle House is usually populated by working-class men at that time of morning, and this day [...]
The story of the Blessed Virgin Mary accepting the Son of God is related to all the pagan myths of gods and girls. It is related to all the Cinderella stories of poor girls swept off their feet by powerful masters, but it is related to these stories as the birth of a child is [...]
God’s way of working in the world is full of seeming coincidences, plot twists, and unexpected jolts. Ronald Reagan’s election at an advanced age could not have been predicted, neither could have the sudden death of Pope John Paul I, which thrust the young pope from Poland onto the world stage. Most dramatic, however, was [...]