Much as there might be to say today about things falling apart, my point has less to do with the disintegration of civilization and more to do with the way that a poem committed to memory holds things together. Back in the early days of COVID 19, when churches were shutting out their parishioners and [...]
What John Henry Newman says about conscience shocks the modern secular sensibility, which treats it (if at all) as the “socially constructed” result of any number of cultural influences. The conscience is a messenger from God: giving saints courage to resist tyranny, even unto death. by Emmeline Deane, oil on canvas, 1889 The [...]
For the Progressives, checks and balances were merely a hindrance to efficient government. How could it be wrong to act in accordance with the spirit of history? As “experts” replaced statesman, the whole idea of “the consent of the governed” became less important, even a stumbling block for the plans of Progressive reformers. Recently, Wyoming [...]
If we consider the Founders’ arguments for the Constitution, we find not only that they intended it to be undemocratic, but that they would defend even its most undemocratic elements on “popular” grounds. What might appear to the partisans of democracy today as outdated roadblocks to efficient government are for the Founders politically salutary forms [...]
Mary's example of humility guides us in strange times like ours, when the ancient sins have lost their shame. This month’s Wyoming School of Catholic Thought (June 12-17) took on a topic of universal importance: mortality and eternity. Our participants, who were deeply engaged in the week-long conversation, repeatedly wrestled with the primordial relation between [...]
Writing poetry helps a reader understand excellence. Reading poetry without ever having tried to write in verse is like watching baseball without ever having felt the seams of a ball or pounded your fist into the web of a glove or swung a bat and felt the sweet, solid contact. Earlier this semester, the poet [...]
The poet relies upon on a shared understanding that gives his imagination the oxygen to sustain it. The world lacks certitude about its direction, and we want most of all to awaken the poetic powers urgently necessary for the long rebuilding that lies ahead. For the past month or so, I have been doing daily [...]
There’s something personal and unforgettable in the anger of someone who passionately protects the good. Good wrath is profoundly instructive. We hope in God’s mercy, yet we are mindful of His justice, which is not presented to us as dispassionate correction. My wife and I had a mentor, a wise man and forceful leader, who [...]
Many in our society consider religion merely an instrument of power, and they believe that the “correction” of inherited beliefs and practices can be forced upon the unwilling. But there’s an enormous difference between people who choose the real common good and people forced to submit to a state ideology. When I went into the [...]
Our students read the greatest books of the tradition, a challenge to the brightest minds, and risk themselves repeatedly in conversation, until those who are seasoned “invariably deem it a special privilege to be in the front,” as General William Tecumseh Sherman said of veteran soldiers. Years ago, when my wife and I taught at [...]
In the transcendence of God, the truth is not a collection of dispiriting facts about our meaningless emergence from chance combinations of matter, but justice and mercy and ultimate harmony. Our approach ought to be to reveal Who God is, not to close off the way to Him. At last week’s meeting of the Philadelphia [...]
My friend John O'Connell was a conservative of the truest stamp, never miseducated, never subject to the whims and fashions of opinion. A man of dignified piety, his principles were strong and unshakable. I have had occasion many times to say that Jack was the best man I knew, and I do not want his [...]
In this Advent season, we wait in expectation, we hope for the coming of the Lord Who has come and Who is coming and Who will come again. We remind ourselves of His absence from the lives of so many in the world today, and we pray that graces may come to cure us of [...]
Nothing breaks through melancholy like a baby. During Advent, we wait for that moment of absolute newness that we need within but cannot muster, that moment when the whole of the divine nature, the whole meaning of universes beyond number, lies helpless before us. On Monday of this week, students met with me in the new [...]