Catholic Culture

The Consequences of Losing Catholic Culture

One of the best essayists writing today is Joseph Epstein, the long-time faculty member in the English Department of Northwestern University and the former Editor-in-Chief of The American Scholar. Over the years, Epstein’s work has appeared in numerous places—sometimes with a select readership and sometimes with a more general readership. Epstein’s essay comparing the Chicago … Read more

Christianity and the Radical Transformation of Culture

Man is not a body of mass in motion with the aim of peaceable consumption as modern anthropology suggests. Man does not live on bread alone; man is, as the ancients knew, a social animal. However, the great revelation of Christian anthropology is that man is also a cultural animal. Culture, rooted in the Latin … Read more

Evangelizing the Alt-Right

I first came into contact with Alt-Right circles in 2012—long before anyone (least of all me) knew or cared who they were. As now, they were predominantly well-educated, middle-class Millennials. And I studied them closely, because I sensed they were going to grow much, much larger. It was inevitable. Why? Because they’re cut from the … Read more

What To See While Visiting Niagara Falls

If you are going to visit Niagara Falls, there’s one more stop every Catholic-traveller must make: The New York Power Authority on Route 104 between Niagara Falls and Lewiston, NY. It’s right between the Lower Niagara River and the Vincentian Niagara University. You must see this because, by all standards of current political correctness, it … Read more

A Question of Perspective

I recently took my nine-year-old son, Karol, to the National Gallery of Art here in Washington. I knew that a nine-year-old’s idea of a fun Sunday was not necessarily looking at art, but I thought he needs some exposure to it and we can do it in limited amounts, maybe once a month. Besides, I … Read more

School Memories During the Turbulent Vatican II Years

Let me say at the outset that I am aware that people’s recollections of Catholic high schools vary—but the following are some of the memories I have of the 1960s, at the cusp of the Conciliar era and my reflections may resonate with some readers. I attended Brigidine Convent school in Randwick in Sydney, Australia, … Read more

The Beauty of Catholic Order

We didn’t dance. It was an ironclad rule of the schools and religious communities of my youth that dancing was forbidden, a prohibition enforced with the same rigor as the edict to not “drink, smoke, or chew. Or go with girls who do.” Consequently, I first danced during my graduate school days at Boston College, … Read more

Why Do We Read Good Books?

Not long ago, one of my older essays was published in these pages to counterbalance, and to caution against, the unqualified praise of Flannery O’Connor’s fictional stories. As I expected, a great many O’Connor enthusiasts took exception to my critique. But amidst the ensuing disparagement, the common confusions, and the rebuttals of arguments never made, … Read more

Saving Catholic Culture from Destruction

What kind of mindset built all the immigrant Catholic parishes of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the Americas? Was it a way of thinking predicated on practical limitations; on being “realistic” in the mundane sense of the word? This can hardly be so. Something deeply potent—and even slightly irrational to the modern mind—had to … Read more

Rebuilding Catholic Society

The Church is not part of the State. Nor is she simply a part of civil society set up by her members to advance their public and private goals. She is an independent society established by God to be a light to the world. As such, she has her own principles of existence, authority, and … Read more

One Small Way To Restore Catholic Culture

If you ever visit the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN, make sure you get a glimpse of the campus’ loveliest bit of architecture, the iconic St. Thomas arches. Built in 1947, these arches stand proudly astride the administrative building and the liberal arts center, displaying a statue of the university’s patron. At … Read more

The Casino and the Cathedral: On Recovering Our Abandoned Culture

Today’s pagan temples and chapels—capitalistic institutions bent on money making no matter what—have appropriated Catholic styles, symbols, art, liturgy, and rubrics just as Catholics have lost confidence in them. They are winning and we are not. It’s time for Catholicism to become newly aware of the richest of our own symbols lest we lose out … Read more

Should the U.S. be a Catholic Society?

At the close of the Second Vatican Council, Paul VI noted that the Council had displayed an unparalleled desire “to know, to draw near to, to understand, to penetrate, serve and evangelize the society in which she lives.” That desire reflected a constant goal of the Church, to make her message effective by bringing it to men … Read more

Entrusting The Future of the West to Our Children

This essay is adapted from the 2012 Lyceum college preparatory school commencement speech. I am grateful to the founding parents and benefactors of the Lyceum that you have not had to grow up in a cultural wilderness as I did.  Why anyone would be nostalgic for the 70’s I do not know.  To give you … Read more

What to expect from the papal visit

Over at Catholic Culture, Phil Lawler offers five things we can expect from Benedict’s trip to the UK (which begins tomorrow). Among things like the “nasty rhetoric” and criticism of the organizers that we’ve already seen, one item stood out — and gave me hope for the visit: 4. Expect the unexpected  Pope Benedict has … Read more

Interfaith statement denounces bigotry against Islam

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was one of 34 signatories to a statement yesterday denouncing “categorically the derision, misinformation and outright bigotry being directed against America’s Muslim community.” Catholic Culture has an excerpt: We are profoundly distressed and deeply saddened by the incidents of violence committed against Muslims in our community, and by the desecration of Islamic … Read more

Christ in the Village: The Treasures of Catholic Culture

  Bits and pieces of my mother’s childhood in Mexico have trickled down to me through the years, usually at unexpected times. As a child, she would tell me of the ceremonies in her village during Holy Week, the posadas during Advent, and the processions through the fields on the feast of St. Isidore, the … Read more

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