Last week I promised to explain in a few short columns the social science of economics — the discipline that describes how everything gets done among all the human beings on earth. It might sound like a daunting task, but I bring to it all my skills as a Catholic humor columnist and English professor, … Read more
Most of the arguments that occur over Catholic social teaching, made by people ranging from well-intentioned laity to very well-placed clergy, take place in an ignorance of economics so profound that I’m tempted to call it Edenic. I say this for many reasons. The first is sarcastic: Too many Christians look at the complex mechanisms … Read more
So here I am in the Holy City for a week, to attend a family wedding and restore my shattered nerves. Too many months spent teaching Great Books in rural New Hampshire is enough to reduce a civilized man to a bag of broken glass, and I need at least a week of taking subways … Read more
One of the classic texts written in defense of political and economic freedom is Frederic Bastiat’s The Law. I remember having the book pressed on me as a high school senior by a smart, nerdy-looking libertarian who worked at the Laissez-Faire Bookstore in New York, and I wish that I’d read it then. It would … Read more
When a Roman general returned victorious from a war against an enemy of the Republic, he was typically granted a “triumph”: a lavish, bloodthirsty, pagan version of a ticker-tape parade, which centered on long lines of enslaved captive enemies marching in chains behind his chariot, and climaxed with the butchery of their general before throngs … Read more
The following conversation took place between two friends of mine at a Piggly-Wiggly in Pumpkin Center (just north of Baptist), Louisiana. For the longest time, whenever I’d drive down I-10 between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, I’d see the green road sign that said “Pumpkin Center” over “Baptist,” which stuck in my mind as the … Read more
As a literature teacher, I’m marking the Easter season in one way I know how: assigning books that are suited to the season. This week we’re reading that lyrical, enormously uplifting work of Charles Péguy, The Portal of the Mystery of Hope. A gifted poet, Péguy lived among the poor, defended the innocent Dreyfus, embraced and … Read more
The ugly little secret of life, one I hesitate to share with students, is how disappointing all of it is. Indeed, if the reader is under 30, I’m tempted to tell him to click on some other column — lest I drain from him the sparks of life and energy that are meant to keep … Read more
When we are spiritually weak, God often uses gentle means to draw us to Himself — aware that anything harsher would drive us off. This is one of the most attractive aspects of our divine romancer: that He woos as a true lover would, and protects like a firm, loving parent. Complications arise when we’re … Read more
I often wonder, writing here, what possible expertise I have to offer. I’m not a theologian, so my take on deeper issues is by necessity secondhand. My knowledge of Catholic history is wide-ranging but thin — and focused disconcertingly on religious orders that brew beer, make wine, or invented distinctive liqueurs. (Surely there’s much to … Read more
One of the ways we mark Lent is through almsgiving, which doesn’t just mean writing checks but engaging in all the Works of Mercy recommended by the Church. One of those that has never really appealed to me is “visiting the prisoner.” Maybe I’m wimpier or more worldly than most of you, but I’m daunted … Read more
More than any other time, the season of Lent raises for us the question of suffering. Indeed, the great advantage of Christianity over competing faiths is its technology for rendering suffering meaningful. Beginning with the book of Genesis, divine revelation seems to me less an answer to speculations such as, “Where did the world come … Read more
I’m starting off Lent this year not in the desert but in my own Jerusalem, New York City — city of temples and towers, titans and toilers, Rev. George Rutler and the Rockettes. It is here you’ll find the best and the worst man has to offer, the supremely serious and the sublimely silly. Here … Read more
The past few weeks have seen a contentious, sometimes enlightening debate over how committed Catholics must be to truth-telling, in what circumstances, and at what price. The issue arose when bloggers responded acerbically to the pro-life sting operations of the heroic Live Action operatives who exposed Planned Parenthood’s use of our tax money in violation … Read more
John was only an eight-year-old boy when he had the situation first explained to him: “The judges who run our country just decided that a mother who’s pregnant with a baby doesn’t have to have that baby if she doesn’t want to.” “So what can she do instead?” “She can go to the doctor and … Read more
I was recently delighted by the sting operation performed against Planned Parenthood by Live Action, whose members posed as a pimp and a prostitute, intending to test the organization’s willingness to enable the exploitation of underaged girls and expose its cynical disregard of the human dignity of women. None of this should surprise those of … Read more
I’m sure it has happened to you: In the course of an argument about some timeless teaching of the Church, your opponent dismisses what you’re saying as “medieval.” In other words, your position (and the Church’s) might have worked well enough when the Black Plague was ravaging Europe, the majority of literate men were … Read more
Last year’s congressional elections turned out better than conservatives deserved. Republicans grabbed back the power of the purse with the House of Representatives, giving them the ability — if they have the strategy and the nerve — to hobble the rest of Barack Obama’s presidency. And on most issues, they should. For instance, Republicans should … Read more
There’s plenty of buzz about the upcoming Anthony Hopkins film The Rite, which tells me that, somewhere, some publicist is going to keep his job. In my long years as an obscure Catholic journalist (is there any other kind?), I’ve gotten regular invites from PR companies that specialize in the “Christian market” to preview movies … Read more
We use so many metaphors for the Church: the Mystical Body of Christ, the People of God, the Ark of Salvation, the Bride of Christ. It’s all too easy for these vivid, poetic images to vanish from our minds, or ring bitterly hollow, when our confidence is shaken a bit by crises in our lives … Read more