[Link to Part I] During World War II an untold number of non-combatant Germans, Japanese and others were killed when towns and cities in which they lived were leveled by American bombers under a policy set by U.S. President Roosevelt … Continue reading
Most readers of these lines will not have been around when the U.S. dropped atomic bombs first on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and then on Nagasaki three days later. I was myself only a kid, … Continue reading
When Catholics think of someone in modern time who might be a saint, they seem to think first of all of a person wearing a religious habit or the collar, a sister, priest or pope, Mother Teresa, Msgr. Escriva, John … Continue reading
The subject here is a movie, one I think could be the most important made in my lifetime, at least in terms of cinema’s future. Its importance doesn’t make it a favorite nor even that I have especially enjoyed seeing … Continue reading
The subject of the lines that follow is one about which I’ve written on this website before: the unmistakable and awful signs of a new barbarism rising from the ruins of what used to be Christian civilization. It is not … Continue reading
Soon after the HHS contraception mandate was handed down, the prior of Saint Benedict Center, Brother Andre Marie, posted on this website some lines about there having arisen “a teaching moment,” an opportunity for the bishops of the country to … Continue reading
Pat Buchanan was recently fired from MSNBC after a ten-year association. Pat and I worship at the same extraordinary-rite Sunday Mass in the nation’s capital, but I haven’t had a chance to speak to him since his firing. I have … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
“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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
Site development: Bonaventure
