My first thought when I saw in my e-mail one morning a few weeks ago that Sister Mary Bernadette had died: What would things be like at the Center now that she was gone?
I wasn’t wondering what they would be like for me when next I was in Richmond. When I was there in October for the latest SBC conference, Sister no longer recognized me. I saw then that my personal link to her, such as it was, was already broken. Read More »
Posted in Articles, Catholic Living, Four Last Things
Many years ago, when the Catholic magazine Triumph existed and I was one of its editors, Malcolm Muggeridge stopped by our Washington offices one day. Several of us joined him for drinks on the rooftop terrace of the nearby Washington Hotel. Read More »
Tags: Malcolm Muggeridge, Triumph Magazine
Posted in Articles, Arts and Culture, Politics and Society
As has already been noted on the SBC website, Archduke Otto von Habsburg, who in 1916 became heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, has died. I’d like to offer a couple of additional thoughts.
The Archduke passed away in his sleep at his home in Bavaria during the night of July 3-4. He was 98. He lived long enough to see his father, Emperor Karl I, beatified, and for a cause for the canonization of his mother, Empress Zita, to be officially opened. Read More »
Tags: Archduke Otto von Habsburg, Blessed Karl von Hapsburg, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
Posted in Articles, Biography, History, News
For better or worse, France has had a dominating intellectual and cultural influence throughout the West for a very long time. For most of the past couple of centuries, the influence has been for the worse. Many of the Enlightenment ideas that now shape our lives in society may have arisen first in England and Scotland, but it was in French that they were conveyed to European intellectual circles, mainly by Voltaire, at a time when French was the language of those circles. Europe, of course, is the heartland of the West. Read More »
Tags: Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine Le Pen, Nicholas Sarkozy
Posted in Articles, News, Politics and Society
It was generally ignored, but this past February 18 was an important anniversary in American history. It was on that date 150 years ago that Jefferson Davis, former U.S. Senator and former U.S. Secretary of War, was inaugurated as the first President of the C.S.A., the Confederate States of America. Alas, he was also that nation’s only president. Four years after his inauguration the nation ceased to exist, though 250,000 men gave their lives fighting to defend its independence.
Why “alas”? Read More »
Posted in Articles, Catholic America, History, Politics and Society
Oct
15
October 15th, 2010
If there were many persons who didn’t watch on October 13 the television coverage from Chile of the rescue of the 33 miners who had been trapped below ground for more than two months, they missed some of the most soul-stirring moments anyone is ever likely to experience. It was also an opportunity to see what it’s like when the Faith is still a force strongly-enough felt in the culture of a people for it to be lived, and not simply occasionally referenced. Read More »
Posted in Articles, Catholic Living, News, Politics and Society
“Put not your faith in princes,” Scripture exhorts us. In our day and age it might be added, “Put not your faith in celebrities.” I say that on account of the case of Mel Gibson.
Back when his movie The Passion of the Christ was current a very great many Traditional Catholics went giddy, and not simply over the film. The way they talked about the filmmaker, it sounded as if they thought he walked on water. Of course this was understandable. Used as they were to being relegated to the margins both of society and, at that time, the Church, it was intoxicating that somebody who really matters nowadays, a celebrity, gave every sign of being one of them. As far as I know, he truly was that and, more to the point, remains so. Read More »
Tags: Mel Gibson
Posted in Articles, Arts and Culture, Morals
Think of a civilization as a fruit. The interior of the fruit — its meat — consists of the ideas, principles and beliefs professed by the members of a society, and thence of the civilization of which that society is part. Throughout history until modern time, the ideas, principles and beliefs of all civilizations derived from religion. When societies in great parts of the world were Christian, notably in Europe and its overseas outposts, so was the civilization in those places. That is, men in those places lived according to the Christian ideas, principles and beliefs they professed. Read More »
Posted in Articles, Arts and Culture, Politics and Society
(Note: When Mr. Potter sent me this piece for consideration, he said, “I can think of several reasons why you might decide not to post the piece I am attaching for your consideration. If you so decide, there’ll be no upset feelings at my end.” He’s a magnanimous gentleman, Gary Potter. Although some superficial folk will doubtless object to the remarks that follow as “pro-Obama” (which they are certainly not), I think this risk worth taking. Gary’s remarks are worth considering — which implies they must be read carefully and thought about — especially by those conservatives whose conservativism conserves nothing in particular; nothing, that is, other than victory for Republican candidates and whatever their agenda might be, foreign or domestic, pro-life or not, jingoist or no. As I recently tried to point out, we Catholics are not called to be ideologues, but disciples. And we are certainly not called upon to be party cheerleaders. —Brother André Marie)
There are four things I should like to say in the lines which follow, written in real time somewhat more than a month after President Obama’s appearance at Notre Dame and also following his speech at Cairo University. The first has to do with his Notre Dame appearance. Read More »
Posted in Articles, Politics and Society
On the Sunday after Easter readers of the Washington Post were shocked and saddened by a story on the paper’s front page. It concerned a family who lived in Middletown in the Maryland countryside about 50 miles outside D.C. The 34-year-old father of the family had killed his wife, their three young children and then himself. The bodies had been discovered on Saturday by the wife’s father, who went to the house when repeated phone calls weren’t answered. Read More »
Tags: Flannery O'Connor, Southern Gothic
Posted in Columns, Literature and Poetry
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