Is the West Worth Saving?
Last month I had the privilege and the pleasure of being a panelist during a public debate in Budapest on the thorny subject of “Christian Democracy and the Future of Europe”. I was one of five “experts” on the panel. The others came from Poland, Hungary, Germany, and England. My fellow Englishman on the panel … Read more
The West Must Return to the Faith – or Perish
Western civilization is weak, exhausted, dying. Our leaders in the Church – servants in attendance to the Great Physician – can now think of nothing to do but preach this thing they call “mercy.” There is nothing wrong with mercy, of course; but when our clerics use the word, they sound more like hospice nurses … Read more
Critics of Christianity Aren’t So Clever
On cue, my recent article, “The Mercy of Intolerance,” prompted some, um, spirited responses outside the general Crisis readership. One gentleman, “Paul,” who was particularly exercised by the piece shot me an email (excerpt below) in hopes of educating me. My response follows. Regis, you and I live in two different worlds. In my world tolerance … Read more
Secular Superficiality Versus the Rootedness of Culture
The other day we Americans were informed by National Public Radio that it was Easter Sunday, when Christians celebrate the fact that Jesus did not have to go to hell or purgatory, but rose straight into heaven. It is like saying that Christopher was named Columbus after the capital of Oklahoma, or that Joan of … Read more
Civilization and Its Enemies
What is civilization and why is it important? Civilization is many things, but at its heart, it is both the inheritance of societal ideas, customs, and traditions which inform the body, and it is how that body is structurally organized based on that inheritance coupled with the ongoing changes of socio-political development. Western civilization, for … Read more
Paris Statement Defends Old Europe and Its Values
“Our beloved home will not be fulfilled with the European Union. The real Europe is, and always will be, a community of nations, at once insular, sometimes fiercely so, and yet united by a spiritual legacy that, together, we debate, develop, state—and love.” ∼ The Paris Statement, #12. Aristotle had trouble comprehending the feasibility of Alexander’s … Read more
Evangelizing the Alt-Right
I first came into contact with Alt-Right circles in 2012—long before anyone (least of all me) knew or cared who they were. As now, they were predominantly well-educated, middle-class Millennials. And I studied them closely, because I sensed they were going to grow much, much larger. It was inevitable. Why? Because they’re cut from the … Read more
We Are All Poles Now: The Battle is for Western Civilization
While some frenzied protestors call Trump “illiterate,” Polish crowds were impressed at the American president’s depth of historical understanding in the recent speech delivered in Warsaw’s Krasiński Square (July 6, 2017). The place chosen for the speech was remarkable in itself and holds great significance for Poles. Trump chose to speak at the memorial to … Read more
How Christianity Civilized Mankind
Anyone who knows anything about the Judeo-Christian tradition (an increasingly small group, I know) is aware that the Hebrew law “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” was intended to limit the bloodthirsty drive for vengeance. As Saint Augustine observed, “For who will of his own accord be satisfied with a … Read more
The Past is a Place
“True nostalgia is a desire less for a time than a place” ∼ John Lukacs “The oldest things ought to be taught to the youngest people.” ∼ G.K. Chesterton Professor Jeffrey Hart, who retired in 1993 following three distinguished decades teaching English Literature to the best and the brightest at Dartmouth College, was always a … Read more
How Not to Interpret Scripture
There is a class that most college students will take at one point in their academic career. It is the course on Western Civilization—“Western Civ” for short. It is a feeble attempt to supplement the modern college curriculum (typically in two freshman-level courses) with what used to be the very backbone of a liberal education. … Read more
The Beauty of Catholic Order
We didn’t dance. It was an ironclad rule of the schools and religious communities of my youth that dancing was forbidden, a prohibition enforced with the same rigor as the edict to not “drink, smoke, or chew. Or go with girls who do.” Consequently, I first danced during my graduate school days at Boston College, … Read more
Time for a Truly Catholic Renovation
O magnum mysterium, et admirabile sacramentum, ut animalia viderent Dominum natum, iacentem in praesepio: Beata Virgo, cuius viscera meruerunt portare Dominum Christum. What a great mystery, what a wonderful sign, that animals should see the Lord, new-born, lying in a manger! Blessed is the Virgin, whose womb was privileged to carry Christ the Lord. … Read more
What is Civilization?
Is civilization worth defending? Should we aim to conform to it so that we can be considered civilized? Should we aim to bring our children up according to its norms so that they can also be considered civilized? Should we try to make our country and our world as civilized as possible? The chances are … Read more
Christianity: Foundation of Western Success
In his famous critique of John Stuart Mill, Mill and Liberalism (1963) the Cambridge historian Maurice Cowling underscored just how much the views advanced by self-identified liberals were underpinned by the conviction that their conception of the historical background to any number of events is more-or-less universally accepted. Sometimes they are right in making that … Read more
How Catholics Can Save Our Dying Civilization
In a recent address, Archbishop Chaput articulated how much we depend on the residual religious capital of earlier times, but once the capital is spent, “we may not like the results, because the more we delete God from our public life and our private behavior, the more we remove the moral vocabulary that gives our … Read more
What Have Those Pesky Christians Ever Done for Us?
The Monty Python film, Life of Brian, has a scene in it where Reg, the leader of a group of Jewish rebels, asks what the Romans have ever done for the Jewish people. The assembled group chip in with ideas one-by-one, undermining the implication that the Romans have brought nothing by hardship to Israel. Reg … Read more
Obama’s Disregard for Our European Inheritance Imperils American Freedom
Our quadrennial spectacle of electing a president brings out the relationship between political order and the nation’s cultural and social order. Take the question of “rights,” which is a concept at the heart of the American experiment. Based on the nation’s revolt from England, and deeply grounded in the mother country’s common law tradition, rights … Read more
The Age of the Laity…or the Latte?
So what will it be? A grande Latte… or Western Civilization? A scone with that… or the meat of doctrine? An extra shot of espresso… or the survival of families? A Moccachino… or the Mystical Body of Christ? Today, the price is the same. Tomorrow the terms change. Tomorrow there may be silence, apart from the … Read more