St. Gregory's University just concluded its first bi-annual “Leisure and Labor Conference,” which brings academics and professionals together to reflect on the interplay between the liberal arts and the professions. The dialogue between Martha and Jesus in Chapter 10 of Luke’s Gospel captures the essence of this relationship between labor and leisure. Mary sits at Jesus’s [...]

David Leonhardt, in the January 18 New York Times, asked whether the “heyday of the colleges that serve[d] America’s working class is over.” He reminisces about the City College of New York, which used to cost only a few hundred dollars a year but was the “Harvard of the proletariat.” He laments the fact that good, [...]

In “That perfection of the Intellect,” wrote the lucid John Henry Newman in The Idea of a University, and its beau ideal, to be imparted to individuals in their respective measures, is the clear, calm, accurate vision and comprehension of all things, as far as the finite mind can embrace them, each in its place, and with [...]

Those who doubt that orthodox Christians risk persecution should consider the case of Anthony Esolen. A prominent scholar of Renaissance literature, Esolen authored a widely used translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy. He writes books and essays incessantly, contributing to Magnificat, Crisis magazine, and other publications and online outlets that take seriously Christianity and human excellence. [...]

Faced with a declining population, decreasing tax revenues, underfunded schools, and no money to clean up a toxic environmental hazard, the town of Black Hawk, Colorado, voted to legalize gambling. As Newsweek reported back in 1994, the citizens of Black Hawk thought the legalization of gambling would solve their problems. Alderman Herb Bowle, for example, [...]

On my way to work at Providence College, I pass by two notable murals painted on concrete retaining walls to edify motorists passing by. One of them is executed in the brightly colored style of a cartoon, with exaggerated circles and curlicues for eyes and hair and ears and noses. It cries out in big [...]

While the faculty furor directed at Simon Newman, the beleaguered former president of Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Maryland, has certainly garnered the most media attention, it is simply the most recent in a growing number of faculty attempts to remove senior administrators at colleges and universities throughout the country.  In a climate of cost-cutting and [...]

In a hyper-sexual society, once-traditional morals have eroded even in our Catholic institutions—and especially on many Catholic college campuses. Research shows that the pervasive “hook up” culture on the typical American campus is found even at many Catholic colleges, a fact that will not surprise most Crisis readers. Given the documented consequences of the Sexual [...]

The annual Cardinal Winning Lecture on Catholic Education, sponsored by the St. Andrew’s Foundation, was delivered on February 6, 2016, at the University of Glasgow in Scotland by Tracey Rowland, the Australian theologian and Director of the John Paul II Institute in Melbourne. Rowland is the author of two books on Benedict XVI and of [...]

In an attempt to help their highly ranked—yet financially struggling—Catholic university, the Board of Trustees at Mount St. Mary’s in Emmitsburg, MD, hired Simon Newman, a Los Angeles private equity and strategic planning leader to be its new president in 2014. A year later, Newman found himself at the center of a faculty-led firestorm over [...]

Higher education in the United States is beset with a variety of crises, from skyrocketing tuition rates to the attendant ballooning student loan debt. Much has been written in the last several years, in particular, about the dire situation in which the humanities find themselves in the universities, as student enrollment in majors such as [...]

Few things are certain in this world, but this I believe with untroubled confidence: liberal Catholics are on the wrong side of history. Our Lord has already assured us that the Church will stand the test of time, and “the gates of Hell will not prevail” against it. Ours isn’t the first era in which [...]

We at the Ukrainian Catholic University were surprised and disappointed by Dr. Alexander Sich’s recent article in Crisis Magazine. The Ukrainian Catholic University proudly teaches and promotes Church doctrine on the integrity of the family and the theology of the body, including its teachings on abortion, marital fidelity, birth control, and the sacred nature of [...]

You cannot please both God and the world at the same time. They are utterly opposed to each other in their thoughts, their desires, and their actions.  ∼ Saint John Vianney A fellow I know well in L’viv, who works with western European sponsors of projects aimed at improving local legal and civic management, shared with [...]

In an attempt to undermine the right of Catholic K-12 schools to “hire (and fire) for mission” the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle recently claimed that while the paper will not “quarrel with Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone’s determination to ensure that his rigid interpretation of Church doctrine is taught at four Catholic high schools,” they suggest [...]

Recently, as readers of Crisis may have heard, our administration at Providence College retracted an invitation to a Professor John Corvino, who afterwards said in disgruntlement that he’d been looking forward to speaking at a Catholic college like ours, to persuade young people that the homosexual life was good for the individual and for the [...]

Four years ago, Obama’s Chicago crew borrowed a page from the Three-Card-Monte hustlers in Manhattan’s Central Park. With the nation distracted by the perils of Obamacare, Democrats quietly hijacked the student loan program from the private sector and handed it to the federal government. “We’ve eliminated the middleman,” they cawed, “and the savings will go [...]

St. John’s University is back in the news following an investigation into possible financial improprieties involving the former president of the university and another administrator with ties to Cecilia Chang, a dean who was accused of fraud.  A statement released by the University on August 24th, concluded that although “there were errors in judgment” by [...]

Standing in front of a famous 1964 photo of Father Theodore Hesburgh locking arms with the Rev. Martin Luther King, Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, honored Father Hesburgh at a party on Capitol Hill celebrating the retired president of the University of Notre Dame’s 96th birthday in late May.  During her celebratory remarks, Pelosi [...]