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May 17, 2012

Building the New Rome

by John Jalsevac

In 2005 I spent three months in Rome. In some ways I have never left. Perhaps it sounds like a commonplace to say that I “left part of myself” in the Eternal City. But the fact is, I did. I…

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May 17, 2012

Democracy’s Private Places

For centuries the public square and the street have been the spatial media of public culture. But just how important is traditional public space—urban space—to a genuinely public culture? In an age of increasingly sophisticated electronic communications, does civil society…

May 16, 2012

What Does a “Realistic” Fantasy Look Like?

by Harley J. Sims

A Game of Thrones was first a fantasy novel by American writer George R.R. Martin, published in 1996 as the first book in the series A Song of Ice and Fire. Five of a projected seven titles have appeared, the…

May 16, 2012

A Fantasy of Salvage

Zombie voodoo pirates. Time-traveling Mossad agents. Djinn in the Cold War. The dark fantasy novels of Catholic author Tim Powers can seem like pure high-concept, and his newest book—a sequel to The Stress of Her Regard, a.k.a. What If the…

May 16, 2012

On Being a Catholic Writer

by Ralph McInerny

Many Catholic writers have balked at being called that. They were Catholic and they wrote, all right, but they didn’t want to be read as if the point of their fiction was a religious message. As if you could earn…

May 15, 2012

Brain Damage and the NFL: Is Watching Football Immoral?

by Christian Tappe

Every Sunday, from the kickoff to the final Hail Mary attempt as time expires, Americans glue themselves to their TVs and cheer on their team. Football may not quite be America’s Pastime, but it’s certainly America’s Game. And yet, the…

May 15, 2012

From Faust to a Poor Wayfaring Stranger, A May Music Review

by Robert R. Reilly

Since my meditation on playing LPs in late February, I have been engaged in an even more revanchist activity – listening to live music at concerts and opera houses. For those interested in my musical autobiography, my reviews of the…

May 5, 2012

The Well-Sheltered Catholic

by Steve Skojec

In 1971, a group of distinguished individuals — artists, writers, musicians, intellectuals — sent an appeal to Pope Paul VI requesting that he preserve the classical Roman Rite of the Mass. This group, composed of Catholics and non-Catholics alike, had…

May 2, 2012

The Cartoon World of Ayn Rand

by Donald DeMarco

I do not enjoy cartoons. I did when I was a child, but that was long ago. If I am surfing the channels and Bugs Bunny pops up, I keep going. Nonetheless, strange as it may seem, when there is…

April 26, 2012

Augustinian Maxims and Truths

by Rev. James V. Schall, S.J.

Again on going through Augustine’s City of God with a class, I am struck by the pithiness of many of his statements. Nietzsche had over five thousand epigrams and maxims in his works. The City of God is something over…

April 25, 2012

Roger Williams and The Creation of the American Soul: Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty

by Rev. Michael P. Orsi

The role of individual conscience and religion in American society has been debated since the arrival of the first English settlers. The original intent of the Puritans was to establish a theocracy in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. John Winthrop, its…

April 24, 2012

Orgel, Orgel Über Alles: How the German Organist Put His Foot Down

Along the same tributary of Lethe which bears such narcoleptic headlines as “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative”, “Trade: A Two-Way Street”, “Surprises Unlikely in Indiana,” and “Funniest Man in Luxembourg”, there surely floats the banner “Fascinating Book on Organ Music.” The sad…

April 23, 2012

Catholic Schools: Toeing the Party Line

by Paul Kokoski

Robbed of much of their vitality by the violent implosion in religious orders, especially those devoted to teaching the young, over the past fifty years, our Catholic schools have struggled to stay alive – and many have closed their doors…

April 20, 2012

A Pearl in the Desert: San Xavier del Bac

by Steve Skojec

I arrive at the Mission, having driven past the casino and its glittering billboard, stucco and neon mixing garishly among the saguaro. I’ve come to take pictures of this beautiful but challenging monument, indulging my photographic interest in a place…

April 19, 2012

Sympathy for the Devil and Mercy for the Damned

by Christopher Manion

And Lucifer approached the Throne, and from across the abyss there came a clamor, a wailing bereft of beauty, tone, and voice, as though a malignant choir had become suddenly awash in boiling oil. “Oh Great One,” he began, he…

April 19, 2012

Raising the Bar: Christianity and Liberal Arts in the University

by Randall B. Smith

I fear we Christians have lived so long in the shadow of the Enlightenment that, in our apologetic mode, we sometimes forget something we should undoubtedly remember: that in an earlier time, the question was not (as it so often…

April 17, 2012

Man, Proud Man

by Christopher Blum

Paradox and irony immediately confront the historian of liberalism. Commonly understood as the tradition of political thought and action that exalts the liberty of the individual, liberalism has, nevertheless, always included within its ranks men such as John C. Calhoun…

April 10, 2012

Madness, Nietzche, and Being a Basel Professor

by Rev. James V. Schall, S.J.

In Walter Kaufmann’s chronology of Nietzsche’s life, under 1889, it states briefly, that “Nietzsche becomes insane early in January in Turin.” Insanity, evidently, is no impediment to writing letters. Chesterton said that the maniac was the man with the one…

March 30, 2012

Zombies, Zelda, and the Natural Law

by Peter Freeman

Rescuing the princess. Punishing unjust oppressors. Liberating a people from slavery. International gamers across the world live out these fantasies on a daily basis. These fantasies don’t make themselves, however. Grown men and women have to sit down at computers…

March 29, 2012

Trekking for Tournemire: An Aussie Heads to Florida’s Gregorian Chant Convention

Last February, Australia’s R. J. STOVE went in search of America. He found a Marine boot-camp for organists, and a church music congress which felt like a Star Trek convention. When former National Interest editor Owen Harries looked back upon…

March 23, 2012

Praying the Rosary through Art: The Glorious Mysteries

by Maria Stella Ceplecha

Gloria, laus et honor… So goes the old Latin hymn. Sung traditionally on Palm Sunday, it foretells of the Passion of our Lord and His glorious Resurrection. The words bear quoting here: All glory, laud and honor To thee, Redeemer…

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