The moral choice in war is ascertained by doing a crude calculus: Of the available options, which kills the fewest? The option of Japan suddenly embracing peace is an illusion. The brutal calculation was: Do we kill so many people by dropping atomic bombs or so many more by invading? Those were the only two choices. [...]
Better than any historian, storyteller Gertrud von le Fort brings her unique genius for laying bare the human heart in making sense of and finding redemption amid the horror of human suffering. Is there a Catholic home in America that does not display an Infant of Prague watching over the family from the top of [...]
The debate over whether the United States ought to have used the bomb against Japan is complicated and vexing. Did the United States have to drop atomic bombs on Japan to win the war? Should the United States have done so, even if military necessity dictated? I. The Pacific War German surrender on May 8, [...]
Hilaire Belloc’s “The Contrast” is a neglected study of America and Europe after the Great War. His sadness over the utter failure of Europeans to embrace their cultural patrimony and stand independently explains his later sympathy for Franco and Salazar, and his initial interest in Mussolini. The unimaginative always place a wall of separation between [...]
In the wake of Hamas' attack on Israel, Douglas Murray asks broad questions: “What can Western liberal societies do in the face of such movements? What can people who value life do in the face of those who worship death.” On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization, by Douglas Murray (209 [...]
In reflecting on the lives of Fr. Gereon Goldmann and Dr. Takashi Nagai, and the era of war in which they lived, I was struck by how the Catholic faith—when truly lived with dedication—surpasses any national or ethnic enmity. It unites any and all in a universal goodness, mercy, wisdom, and love. While Germany and [...]
Why, one wonders, was Hilaire Belloc so wrong about World War One when he was so right about so many other things? The trouble with satire is that it is topical. It is a child of its time. It is similar to a fad or a fashion. It is very up to date. And the [...]
I started out for Florence in the morning in a state of feverish excitement, and the recollection of the sights of that day makes it difficult to write even now. We drove down the hill from San Casciano to the Greve valley with a sense of overwhelming tragedy. The destruction of Florence seemed the end [...]
Propelled into Supreme Command, and without ever having commanded in battle, Dwight Eisenhower was put into an almost impossible situation, having to meet the demands of his battlefield subordinates while satisfying the conflicting expectations and orders of his masters, both military and political. Eisenhower at War, 1943-1945, by David Eisenhower (977 pages, Random House, 1986). [...]
The 20th Century is marked by the loss of voices cut short in mid-song by war. There have been so many dark centuries in the history of Christendom that one hesitates to call any particular century the darkest of all. Some have been as dark as the 20th century, but none have been as deadly. [...]
This year, when my father’s name is announced along with others from World War II, I will step forward and place that red carnation at the base of his white cross. Mid-week I’ll load the Jeep with a few things including food for Cora Jolene, the Dog. We will make a pilgrimage, a road-trip, some [...]
Crisp in whites, eight men up, four on a side, slow-step the horizontal coffin across the flat expanse of our carrier, toward the edge. The decks are quieted. Crews of men in oil-spotted work clothes give a wide perimeter. The air hangs vacantly, with no women present to stitch that familiar dense knot, that compact [...]
Franz Jägerstätter and Fr. Gabriel Gay are two lesser-known victims of the Nazis. May their prayers deliver Europe from the wolves of secularism and restore the European nations to the Faith which forged them. Franz Jägerstätter In the previous essay in this series, we honored Blessed Otto Neururer, the first priest to be executed [...]
Blessed Otto Neururer would be the first priest to be martyred by the Nazis but by no means the last. Caesar, like the poor, is always with us. So is Judas. And so are the disciples of Christ. The Tyrant, the Traitor, and the Martyr. These three types of men form the very threads from [...]