Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords readers the opportunity to join Titus Techera as he reflects on the meaning of G.K. Chesterton's "A Ballade of Suicide." —W. Winston Elliott III, Publisher G.K. Chesterton published "A Ballade of Suicide" in his journal, The Eye-Witness, September 21, 1911. This is a ballade, an old French form [...]
Maybe because I am particularly dense, I learned nothing of value for human living from all the brilliant mathematicians, esteemed physicists, and distinguished academics I have known. Instead, my mentor was a "curandero," a traditional healer from Northern New Mexico. Even his death taught me a profound lesson about life. When I moved to Santa [...]
Although the prospect of death makes us miserable, it forces us to confront our mortality and search for a remedy, if we do not immediately numb ourselves with the drug of distraction. "Soles occidere et redire possunt [Suns are able to die and rise again]" —Gaius Valerius Catullus, Carmen 5.[1] One morning, as I walked out [...]
In a somewhat bizarre recent interview with the National Catholic Register, the aging rock star, Sting, who eons ago had been lead singer of the rock band The Police, waxed in a bemused and confused way about his relationship with the Catholic faith, in which he was raised but which he has abandoned. He gave [...]
In Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Doulos, it is as if there is an existential darkness present throughout. In this world, no matter how cunning the schemes or how fail-safe the get-away plans are, for all concerned there is a retribution coming. In Melville’s cinematic universe the wages of sin are always death… Recently, at London’s British Film Institute, [...]
The narratives of science and Christianity are obviously not novels, nor works of fiction, for both claim to tell the true story of humankind—where we came from, what we are, and where we are going. To determine if either of these narratives is true, we must assess the plot… In 1882, Nietzsche’s madman ran to [...]
In the case of the now-deceased toddler, Alfie Evans, the British government, through its Royal College of Pediatrics and its courts, had legal authority. Alfie had legal “interests,” which the government defined in his case, but he did not have any “rights.” Alfie’s parents only had a right to be heard; they had no substantive rights or [...]
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 [...]
Franz Schmidt’s lament makes grief beautiful. It elevates it to something irreproachable, like snow on a mountain peak that, when you’re stumbling around in it, stings and chills and makes you lose your footing, but from the distance, oh, the inexpressible beauty. As the story has it, when Hungarian-born twentieth century composer Franz Schmidt received the [...]
So brazenly was Britain’s Culture of Death on display recently that the scales dropped from the eyes of any who wished to see. Many do not want to see, though, and look away as life support machines are turned off, and the full force of the law is used to prevent the sick moving to a better [...]
How is such monstrous barbarism possible? How can men do these things? It beggars belief. And yet we know that it is all so brutally and realistically true. It happened, and not merely to one family, and their neighbours, but to a whole race of people. “Who today still speaks of the annihilation of the [...]
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 Seventh Seal is focused on man’s spiritual doubt, and even complete lack of faith in God. The film asks: How can God remain separate from us as we experience darkness and suffering? The Swedish director, Ingmar Bergman, has secured his place in the cinematic canon not only as a superb and unique director but [...]
The birth control for which Margaret Sanger so passionately fought has led not to freedom, but to slavery of the worst kind, for both men and women. Of this, we as a nation should be very afraid. Margaret Sanger, the great champion of sexual liberalism, is about as modern as they come in many ways, [...]