“I do not care very much what men say of me, provided that God approves of me.” ∼ St. Thomas More What is popular is not always right; what is right is not always popular. Notwithstanding the refrain’s chronic understatement, conservatives in America used to appreciate the proposition’s fusty otherworldliness. Conservatives, that is, used to applaud … Read more
In his 1974 book, The Roots of American Order, which he viewed as his contribution to America’s Bicentennial, the great scholar Russell Kirk said that the virtue and dignity of a great president like Lincoln was “still respected by the American democracy.” In the 2016 presidential campaign so far, it is not so clear that … Read more
Editor’s note: Below is an excerpt from an interview with Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) conducted by Professor Robert P. George of Princeton University that aired November 25 on EWTN. The interview series, titled “Candidate Conversations 2016,” will pose a number of questions to presidential candidates on topics of particular concern to Catholic voters. The passage … Read more
In February 2002, Aaron D. Wolf, the associate editor of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, and I spent a full day at the local Islamic school and mosque in Rockford, Illinois. After lunch, we had the opportunity to sit down with a group of students, handpicked by the principal, to discuss their experiences at … Read more
[A political party is] a body of men united, for promoting by their joint endeavours, the national interest, upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed. —Edmund Burke All too many people in the mainstream press, and even among the Republican Party faithful, have been expressing extreme relief that Republican Party leaders “compromised” … Read more
Last week’s marathon speech-fest (it wasn’t really a filibuster) from Senator Ted Cruz probably won’t do much to change the dynamic of politics in Washington or to stop Obamacare from becoming the last brick in the wall of social democracy separating Americans from their traditions of self-reliance and local community control. But, to someone interested … Read more