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Liturgy as Mission
I came away from last week’s Sacra Liturgia conference in New York on something of a high. It was exhilarating to see a large audience drawn to Mass in the Extraordinary Form. I had half expected the...
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Post-Encyclical Readings
Snared by the hot button issues of the day, we serve ourselves best by standing back a bit and reading, or rereading, previous texts that anchor the mind in the longue durée. Or at least release us...
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Matt Ridley & Politics of Bad Ideas
Every First Things reader should spend a few minutes with Matt Ridley’s “The Climate Wars’ Damage to Science,” in the current issue of Quadrant, Australia’s leading monthly. Neither the pope nor the...
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Sacred Art vs. Sacred Subject
Fanaticism in matters of sacred art is an attitude that can lead to a decadence more sterile than the one we are now endeavoring to overcome. Maurice Lavanoux, “The...
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Tabloid Climatology
When did the online weather report become so rococo and alarmist? It was not until the ornate graphics reached critical mass that I started paying attention to the content’s mission creep. Garish and...
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Notes on the Vatican Climate
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. Daniel J. Boorstin“Religions die.” Those two...
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Indulgences: Counted & Forfeited
I counted indulgences when I was a child. Quite likely, some of you did the same, though maybe not as fastidiously as I did. Every First Friday and First Saturday, there I was indemnifying myself...
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Vandalism With Intent
Something unedifying is under way at the Church of Our Saviour, on lower Park Avenue in Manhattan. This alert from a knowledgeable source came Tuesday morning and has been circulating:I am informed...
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Treason of the Clerisy
I foresee churches with their Jesuit bureaucrats open daily from 9-5, closed on weekends. Georges BernanosJesuits are blameless here but the point...
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A Mess & How It Got There
A man’s being a poisoner is nothing against his prose. Oscar WildeEvery embarrassment is not a scandal. Egg on the face...
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Until Later
There is a hush over August. Its quietude invites every Jackself to take as one’s own Hopkins’ interior monologue: “Let be, call off thoughts awhile.” Words, too, need a rest. Only in silence can we...
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Reinhard Marx, Agony Uncle
It is September. Time to slide out of the hammock and get going. But on what? Headlines piled up over August. Every one of them is a depth meter that gives a reading on how far down the rabbit hole we...
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The Second Coming of Peronismo
Peronism is the highest level of consciousness reached by the Argentine working class. Statement of the Movement of Priests for the Third World, 1971 We mustn’t pay too much attention to...
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Cloward-Piven Goes to Rome
You just slip out the back, Jack Make a new plan, Stan You don’t need to be coy, Roy Just listen to me Hop on the bus, Gus You don’t need to discuss much Just drop off the key, Lee And get yourself...
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Bruce Dorfman, Artist & Mentor
An artist who seeks subject matter is like a person who can’t get up in the morning until he understands the purpose of life. Fairfield PorterPorter...
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Notes on a Road Show
The road show is over. The spectacle flamed up and subsided, a Roman candle of demonic sanctimony. Think of it as pre-game warm-up for the main event: the global climate summit in Paris, November 30...
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Notes on the Vatican Climate
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. Daniel J. Boorstin“Religions die.” Those two...
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