Books
Divine Ironies
From its very outset Christianity was . . . a feeling which merely disgusted, hid and decked itself out in its belief in a ‘another’ or ‘better’ life . . . a Beyond, invented in […]
Essay
Books
Popular fiction and the Catholic Literary Renaissance
I admire anyone who has the guts to write anything at all.” — E.B. White The novel Cheaper by the Dozen saved my life. Like every student who passes through St. John’s College’s Great Books […]
Essay
Corporate persons and corporate corruption
A neglected insight of Scholastic political philosophy and traditional conservatism is that institutions can have a personal nature. The Church, a government, a business firm, a university, a club, and similar social formations are like this. They […]
Essay
Eucharistic Coherence
On April 14, 2021 America Magazine, as part of its ongoing “Conversations” in America Media, published an article I wrote entitled: “For the church to live in eucharistic coherence, we must be willing to challenge […]
Essay
What Mozart taught Hans Küng about God
De mortuis nihil nisi bonum. Loosely translated as “do not speak ill of the dead,” it remains good advice, particularly when reflecting on the life of someone with whom you disagreed about many things. The […]
Books
Ideas have consequences
Richard Weaver, the political philosopher, once wrote that “ideas have consequences.” And therein lies a tale. In June 2001, exactly 20 years ago, a friend of mine and his wife attended a meeting in Washington, […]
Essay
Whether there is a moral obligation to be vaccinated
Objection 1. It seems there is a moral obligation, for one is obligated to care for one’s own body and to care likewise for the body of the neighbor, who by divine command is to […]
Books
Claude McKay’s Harlem Shadows and the Light of Faith
I recently paid tribute to the poet Claude McKay, a singular figure in American literature. He was the first great poet of the Harlem Renaissance who inspired a generation. After a late-life conversion, in 1944, […]
Essay
The Great Reset, Catholic Style
Catholic social teaching has been called the “Church’s best kept secret”, and with good reason. The two foundational encyclicals (Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum [RV]and Pope Pius XI’s Quadragesimo Anno [QA]), other encyclicals on social […]
Essay
“I am the man, Thomas, I am the man…”
I am the man, Thomas, I am the man; Look at these nail scars here in my hands. Jesus didn’t utter those words, as far as we know, during his post-Resurrection encounter with St. Thomas […]