People with limited horizons tend to go for small and utterly implausible conspiracy theories. Blokes with some theory about the assassination of JFK are a dime a dozen. And for just that reason, they tend eventually to cancel each other out, leaving me simplistically thinking Lee Harvey Oswald was a trained marksman and a jerk … Read more
Two dramas are unfolding this political season. First, can Barak Obama defeat Hillary Clinton? Now that Oprah Winfrey is on his stage, evidently he can. Second, will the pro-life party nominate Rudy Giuliani and break its promise to the religious and social conservatives who came into the party over the last thirty years? The plotlines … Read more
In my daily newspaper columns, I have recently tried the experiment of writing directly about the postmodern explosion of scientism. This pertains to discussions of global warming, intelligent design, political correctness, and many other things — but it goes much deeper. Had I a book to fill (and perhaps I do), I would follow … Read more
While staying in the rectory of the St. Thomas Aquinas Newman Club at the University of North Dakota, on the shelves of the guest room I noticed the B.A.C. edition of Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae. I had seen this edition before. With a few moments to spare, I took down the third part of the Summa, … Read more
The workers and peasants of Hollywood, formed in solidarity against evil capitalistic sitcom producers, and organizing under the form of the Writers Guild of America, are threatening to withhold their astonishing talents pending an end to exploitation at the hands of their masters. So goes the conventional story, which is inherently implausible in more ways … Read more
Christianity is under attack — in the media, in the academy, and in the culture. With his latest book, What’s So Great About Christianity, Dinesh D’Souza meets this latest wave head on with his characteristic wit and erudition. Benjamin Wiker spoke with D’Souza about his debut role as a Christian apologist. ♦ ♦ ♦ Benjamin … Read more
Since the bridge in Minneapolis collapsed, the world has become bridge-conscious. In natural law class this semester, I said to the students: “What is the ‘natural law of bridges?’” I was thinking of J. M. Bochenski’s chapter on “law” in his Philosophy: An Introduction. Bochenski shows that a relation exists between the mind and the … Read more
Mitt Romney is seizing the opportunity created by Dr. James Dobson’s threat of a third party candidacy. The Massachusetts pol is positioning himself as the GOP candidate of choice for religious conservatives. How? In a Boston Globe story from October 5, Eric Fehrnstrom, a spokesman for the Romney campaign, said, “Dr. Dobson is keeping an … Read more
It has been one year since Pope Benedict XVI’s ill-starred Regensburg Address. We say “ill-starred” because the media fixated on a side comment the pope made about Islam, apparently to clinch a depiction of the pope as intolerant. In the process, they obscured the luminous center of the pope’s speech, the relationship of science and … Read more
As a practical matter, the argument that a pro-choice president will end abortion is far-fetched. Never in American history has a laissez-faire chief executive ended a great moral evil. Take slavery and de jure racial discrimination. Pro-slavery presidents did not end slavery; it was brought to its conclusion by Abraham Lincoln, who in his 1860 … Read more
There is a train of thought that careens down the tracks of a shaky syllogism, and it picks up speed every four years in the United States. Like the Little Engine that Could, it chugs along and says, “I am pro-life and were I president, I would end abortion. Therefore if I vote for a … Read more
It has been said that while writing the Summa, Saint Thomas Aquinas was, among other things, engaging in a dialogue with Saint Augustine across the cenÂturies. In his extraordinary Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict XVI also seems to regard, in his mind’s eye, a number of interlocutors, living and dead.    It has … Read more
The issue you’re holding marks the final print edition of crisis Magazine. Last month, I explained our reasons for moving the publication entirely online. This month, I want to give you the rest of the story. You see, while it’s true that financial necessity forced our hand a bit, it’s also true that … Read more
Tobacco is dirty weed. I like it. It satisfies no normal need. I like it. It makes you thin, it makes you lean, It takes the hair right off your bean, It’s the worst darn stuff I’ve ever seen. I like it. —Published in the Penn State Froth, 1915. The above poem, quoted by … Read more