French Revolution

The Coming Pandemonium

In ten years, when you think back to the year 2020, which name will come to mind? Maybe it will be Donald Trump or Joseph Biden. Maybe it will be George Floyd or Rayshard Brooks. For me, I’m afraid, it will be Joseph D. Rosenbaum. A video recorded during the Kenosha protests shows Mr. Rosenbaum—a … Read more

Reflections on the Protestant Revolution

According to one sage observation: he who gets to name names, wins. Why do we talk about the Protestant Reformation and not the Protestant Revolution, for example? After all, Martin Luther commenced his journey as a reformer, repulsed righteously, as most of us would be, by the corruption and decadence of the Rome of his … Read more

Bastille Day and Other Convenient Myths

Centenarians are not as rare as they used to be and one can profit from their memories. In California, I spoke with a woman who had traveled there from Missouri in a covered wagon. I visited another woman in a retirement home who was the first to hear her English professor at Wellesley College, Katherine … Read more

Christopher Dawson on 19th-Century Critics of Liberalism

As Christopher Dawson attempted to discover the sources of the ideological disruptions of the twentieth century as well as solutions to the death and terror they caused, he often produced some of his most impassioned work. Indeed, he often comes across, for lack of a better way of putting it, as inspired, a prophet, ready … Read more

When We Subordinate Our Christian Principles

“I die in the Catholic Apostolic and Roman religion, that of my fathers, that in which I was brought up, and which I have always professed” wrote Queen Marie Antoinette in the early morning hours before her execution on October 16, 1793. She penned these words in her final letter, written to her sister-in-law Princess … Read more

Tolerating Terror

The slaying of Father Jacques Hamel at the altar of the church of Saint Etienne-de Rouvray in Normandy should be the envy of every priest: to die at Mass, the holiest hour of the world. The president of France was heartfelt in his mourning, but Monsieur Hollande was also historically remiss when he said: “To … Read more

Can a Generation Own the Earth?

“The earth belongs always to the living generation.” These are not Thomas Jefferson’s most famous words, but they are quite famous among students of politics. They have been used for generations to justify radical political change. And, like the soaring rhetoric of the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, these Jeffersonian words have gained him … Read more

The Catholic Right and the Triumph of French Liberalism

In September 2010, Emile Perreau-Saussine, age 37, was rushed to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, UK, with chest pains. The junior physician on staff misdiagnosed his condition and thus failed to prevent his death hours later of a massive heart attack. This tragic incident is much more than a sad commentary on the quality of socialized … Read more

Frodo Versus Robespierre

If a thing is worth doing at all, it’s worth doing badly. This paradoxical witticism of Chesterton was on my mind as I sat down to watch The War of the Vendée, a new film about the forgotten martyrs of the French Revolution. I was pleased that a film had been made to honour the … Read more

Most Catholics just don’t realize what’s going on at many of our Catholic universities: They need to read the sad story of Marquette University as told by Anne Hendershott in the Wall Street Journal.  Marquette had made an offer to Jodi O’Brien to assume the position of Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.  … Read more

The Sad Story at Marquette University

Most Catholics just don’t realize what’s going on at many of our Catholic universities: They need to read the sad story of Marquette University as told by Anne Hendershott in the Wall Street Journal.  Marquette had made an offer to Jodi O’Brien to assume the position of Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.  … Read more

The ‘Rhetoric of Rant’ and Religious Controversy

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord (1754-1838) was a scandalous bishop, adroit foreign minister, and quintessential survivor who served the French Revolution, Napoleon, and the restored Bourbon monarchy with equally cold-blooded skill. Slippery character though he was, however, Talleyrand also was a wit. In Earthly Powers, his valuable history of the interaction between religion and politics in … Read more

The Best Mind of the 18th Century

God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything Christopher Hitchens, Twelve Books, 307 pages, $24.99 One is tempted to quip that Christopher Hitchens is certainly one of the best minds of the 18th century, but that would be to give Hitchens too much credit as an equal to Voltaire in wit. He is not, and … Read more

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