Some previously unpublished letters and postcards, only made available to scholars since 2014, reveal that Flannery O’Connor used “inexcusable racial slurs” in private correspondence. What, therefore, are we to make of this revelation of racism, however mitigated it might be by other factors, and how should it impact our reading and reception of O’Connor’s [...]
The origins of human things are flawed, no question, and inequalities remain. But should we not try to honor the principles of Washington or Jefferson and distinguish them from the prejudices of the day that they shared? The curriculum at Wyoming Catholic College has much wisdom to offer in the current crisis, much that [...]
What we need in American society are more imaginative resources for thinking about marriage and the great slog of parenthood. We need stories, plays, movies, and shows about the sort of heroism that requires long-haul fortitude and not just courage in the moment. A long-held but somewhat flexible fantasy I have engaged in periodically [...]
Happy 244th, America! The world wouldn’t be the same without you. It would be poorer, less ethical, less stable, and less humane had you never come into existence. Whatever America’s faults, her successes outweigh them all. As protestors around the United States tear down statues, brutally beat rosary warriors, attack neighborhoods, threaten the destruction [...]
Katherine Lee Bates’ “America the Beautiful” conveys the incalculable beauty of virtue that America can exhibit by exercising self-control and taking on the high responsibilities of self-rule. Our prayer for this Fourth of July is that the anomalies of this year do not overcome us, and that our nation will recall itself and find [...]
Banishing memory and the party of memory is nothing short of the banishment of the love and joy which make our lives and memories worth cherishing and conserving. The conservative celebrates the present order precisely because it is imbued with the traces of Eden which vivify our memories—and, therefore, our true selves—and unite us [...]
Together, the corrupting sins of pride and envy destroyed the democracies of ancient Athens and Rome. But what lies at the root of these two greatest of sins? And is there any remedy or antidote that can cure us, and our society, once we give way to them? Fr. Dwight Longenecker’s “Immortal Combat” offers [...]
In “The Decadent Society,” Ross Douthat’s definition of decadence reaches more deeply into the underlying causes of our present rot. Is American society sick, sclerotic, sterile, and stagnant, as he suggests? The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success, by Ross Douthat (272 pages, Avid Reader Press, 2020) There is [...]
As the globalist agenda, pursued by an unholy alliance of super-rich plutocrats and their Marxist dupes, continues to unravel, it is likely that Hungary and its healthy response to cultural suicide might be destined to have the last laugh. Amid the madness and hysteria besieging the United States and many countries in western Europe, [...]
It really did not matter that Fr. Daniel Moloney’s letter, which condemned police brutality and any kind of racism, was a model of balance and a call for all people to seek mercy, justice, and reconciliation. What mattered was that he had not repeated the dogmatic utterances of a secular religion. He had to [...]
The revolutionaries of 1776 could be just as violent as those of 2020, but they were truly a lot more intelligent and interesting. Eighteenth-century Americans fought with several generations worth of finely-honed arguments—from law, from experience, and from scripture, whereas the protestors of 2020, while armed with anger, seem armed with little else. In [...]
It is Beethoven—not Bach or Mozart—who is the most universally popular composer in the classical canon. Why is this? Some authors have posited his democratic social beliefs or his personal story of victory over deafness. These are all certainly factors, but I prefer to look first at the aesthetic qualities of the music itself. Johann [...]
May God bless the librarians of the world. Unrecognized as such, they are the keepers and preserves of culture, and of our sanctuary islands in the maelstrom of turbulent modernity. My earliest memory of entering a library was sometime during my first few days at Wiley Elementary School in Hutchinson, Kansas. It was the [...]
There is no safety in silence today. This is a blessing in a way. If you know you cannot stay silent, you now are faced with a choice. Will I speak the truth as best I can see it or simply join in the shouting of the crowd? Silence is golden. Only, however, if [...]