Opinion

Isabella and Angelo

A very tangled situation arises in one of Shakespeare’s lesser-known plays, Measure for Measure. This is to say nothing particularly arresting; after all, what do we come upon in any of his plays but tangled situations? We all know the agonies and cross-currents in Hamlet and Macbeth, of course. (To my own mind, King Lear … Read more

Governor Palin Solves John McCain’s Religion Problem

“I’ve gotten more phone calls in the last two days than I received the entire two months I’ve been working for McCain.” J. R. Sanchez, head of McCain’s Catholic outreach in Florida, isn’t the only one experiencing this among religious and social conservatives. One Catholic activist from San Francisco told me she was offering to … Read more

The Supremacy of Classical Music

Over the past few days, three of our writers have offered lighter reflections on why they prefer a given genre of music — Rock, Showtunes, and Classical. We conclude with Classical Music. ♦ ♦ ♦ Classical music is the greatest music. This assertion is not based upon my preference or opinion; it is as much … Read more

A Grand Night for Singing: Why I Love Showtunes

  Over the next few days, three of our writers will offer lighter reflections on why they prefer a given genre of music — Rock, Showtunes, and Classical.   We continue today with Showtunes.     ♦ ♦ ♦     It is said we love the music of our youth. No doubt we respond … Read more

Jigsaw Puzzle Ecumenism

    As worldwide Anglicanism implodes, Catholics may remember the heady days of Anglican-Catholic ecumenical relations. In 1966, the last great archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, met with Pope Paul VI in the Sistine Chapel. The archbishop and the pope embraced and signed agreements to begin the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission. The pope gave … Read more

Still Rock and Roll to Me

Over the next few days, three of our writers will offer lighter reflections on why they prefer a given genre of music — Rock, Broadway, and Classical.   We begin today with Rock and Roll.     ♦ ♦ ♦   My childhood was marinated in the thunder of Beethoven, the depth of Mozart, and … Read more

Government Gone Wild! The Problem with a Central Bank

Barack Obama’s tax advisers recently posted a piece in the Wall Street Journal about their candidate’s tax plans. Their article was designed to triangulate, painting their candidate as a tax cutter and the Republican opposition as a secret tax raiser. It was well-written and well-argued — not that you can really trust anything you read … Read more

The Speech Hillary Longed to Give

Scene: The Democratic Convention. Denver, August 26, 2008. HILLARY CLINTON motions her hand to speak. FIRST CITIZEN. Stay, ho! and let us hear Hillary. THIRD CITIZEN. Let her go up into the public chair; We’ll hear her. — Noble Hillary, go up. HILLARY. For Obama’s sake, I am beholding to you. [Goes up, clad in … Read more

Joe Biden and the Bishops

  Joe Biden’s voting record on abortion in the United States Senate is likely to cause heartburn for two groups of people: ardent pro-choicers and Catholic bishops. Biden is a Catholic; and yet for the last ten years, according to the National Right to Life Committee, he has voted the “wrong” way 88.5 percent of … Read more

Thrift and the Just Social Order

“It is the duty of those serving the people in public place,” said Grover Cleveland in his first inaugural address in 1885, “to closely limit public expenditures to the actual needs of the government economically administered.” That was, for Cleveland, plain common sense, and his practice proved that he meant it. He was an implacable … Read more

Render Unto Caesar: The Church and Immigration

Sometimes the Church’s public face in a given country can make you proud, and sometimes it has to make you a little sick. American Catholics can justly take satisfaction that our bishops were almost alone in beginning the fight against abortion; the Southern Baptist Conference, of all things, at first backed Roe v. Wade, and … Read more

The Gold

  I do not own a television set, I do not like the cynicism of the Olympic organization, and I’m put off by propaganda spectacles in totalitarian countries. From this, the gentle reader may infer my opinion of the Olympic Games in Beijing. Add to this the fact I am Canadian — we don’t win … Read more

Saving the Christians of Iraq

Last month, I reported on the persecution of Christians in Iraq and the continued vulnerability of their remaining communities. Extortion and violence by Muslim extremists have driven 500,000 Christians out of Iraq — about one quarter of the 2,000,000 Iraqis who have left the country since the beginning of the Iraq War. And another 2,000,000 … Read more

A Good Book About Bad Books

If ever there were a book designed specifically for the enjoyment of InsideCatholic readers, surely it is Benjamin Wiker’s new 10 Books that Screwed Up the World: And 5 Others that Didn’t Help. Wiker should be renowned (if he is not already) for Moral Darwinism: How We Became Hedonists — a book that at once … Read more

Finer Things

As I opened the package that arrived in the mail, a little voice inside my head told me I was nuts. “Have you lost your mind?” it wanted to know. “You can’t have nice things!” The little voice was right, I suppose. If 13 years of parenting have taught me nothing else, they have quite … Read more

Bill-and-Hill vs. Obama

Freud once asked, “What do women want?” And he found it a difficult question to answer. Let’s narrow the question down to a particular woman, and we’ll find the question somewhat easier: “What does Hillary want?” And while we’re at it, we may as well add: “What does Bill want?” — for of course they … Read more

The World Is Watching

  It was only a few years ago that I began exploring Christianity after a life of atheism. I’ll never forget the time I was up late at night, feeling lost and slightly depressed as I searched around the Internet for arguments in favor of God’s existence, and I stumbled across a series of heated … Read more

Abortion, Human Trafficking, and the Left’s Double Standard

Every social problem we face today — from racial discrimination to abortion — is tied to other underlying root causes. It makes sense, then, for society not to neglect long-term proposals when trying to check these matters. But such strategies are never a ready substitute for fighting social problems in the near term. And that’s … Read more

Atheism, Christianity and the E.T. Problem

An atheist who bears an uncanny resemblance to Jack Chick theorizes on What Rome Is Up To when a couple of Catholic sources remark that the discovery of life on other planets poses no particular threat to the Catholic Faith.  This piece is a classic example of how sin makes you stupid. Our Bright knows … Read more

Resisting the Temptations of Power

Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life Charles J. Chaput, Doubleday, 258 pages, $21.95 Twenty years ago, Richard John Neuhaus foresaw a new era of Catholic engagement with American society and politics. “This can and should be the moment in which the Roman Catholic Church in the United … Read more

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