Of all the sordid figures of the American “New Left,” few strike the interest of Catholics quite like Saul Alinsky. This is no doubt because of Alinsky’s rather curious Catholic connections in and around Chicago in the 1960s. Many of them disturbing, given how often he collaborated with senior Church officials. It says as much … Read more
On a Tuesday in 1852, the thirteenth of July for the literary record since it was a day important for English letters, Blessed John Henry Newman mounted the pulpit of Oscott College, its halls relatively new though designed by Joseph Potter and Augustus Pugin to recall the best of the Tudor times before the depredations … Read more
“Not every conspiracy is a theory.” So said an ad campaign introducing a new TV series a number of years ago. I don’t remember what the series was about, but I do remember the tag line. I take it for granted that there are real conspirators afoot in the world who do not have the … Read more
Burying the dead is a work of mercy. So, too, is voting for them, according to Sister Marguerite Kloos. Or at least that’s what she thought last year until Ohio investigators nabbed her for an act of voter fraud. This week she plead guilty to the charge of voting twice, acknowledging that she forged the … Read more
In the vault of modern political oratory is a speech of one senator in the 1960’s quoting George Bernard Shaw: “You see things; and you say,’Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say,’Why not?’ “ There are noble dreams, such as those of our nation’s Founding Fathers right up to the last … Read more
Change and unity — the two words surely epitomize Barack Obama’s campaign for the presidency. Last week’s Democratic Convention extolled change hourly, in a relentless drumbeat. The only relief came when unity was emphasized. What nags at the back of the mind is that the call for “change” and “unity” is not so much an … Read more