The Narthex

A recent convert to Catholicism and I met to discuss my personal experience with monks, celibacy, and community life, as I have lived in monasteries, health resorts, and communes. Jim opened his Bible to Acts 2: 44-45: "All the believers were together and had everything in common.…

Every nation cherishes an image of itself. We are often told that Australia’s was formed on the beaches of Gallipoli, but it’s older and more complex than that. Long before the Australian union, the people of the Australian colonies developed self-images of their own, in great variety. Few directly referred…

In liberal Western circles it has long been axiomatic that Christian missionaries were guilty of offenses against humanity. These include racial discrimination, genocide, the introduction of alcoholism and venereal diseases, the imposition of a sense of guilt onto innocent sexual relationships, and the heartless suppression of native cultures of great…

I recently heard of giant rats invading city parks. They have thick brown fur, yellow incisors, and flat tails, looking enough like beavers to attract folks who then feed them. These rodents each year bear 12 or more litters that will reproduce after 3 months. They proliferate at…

In 1967, during my hippie days, I stood on a landing between the first and second floor of the Boston Public Library admiring the 160-year-old, side by side, marble busts of Christ and Lucifer. Sculpted in 1845 by Horatio Greenbough, these have been on display in the library unharmed since…

Casey, the homeless offspring of Gen. Robert E. Lee whom I wrote about last October, sat at a concrete picnic table in our small neighborhood park. The purple Jacarandas were in full bloom everywhere. As I approached during my daily walk, he closed the book Pillars of the Earth by Ken…

We are urged to have serious conversations about race, and we should. In this post, gentle reader, I push a bit to make them more serious. Let’s bypass the cant of the major political parties. And let’s be on watch both for numbing inertia and for hijacked populism. Objectivity helps,…

During a Sunday morning walk in my lower middle-class neighborhood, I came across a City employee matching paint for a sidewalk wall which had been marked with graffiti. I asked him, not expecting an answer, “Why do kids do this?” “Maybe to feel important, to mark their territory like a…

The destruction of Edward Colston's statue in the English city of Bristol is perfectly understandable in one sense: slavery is a disgusting institution and the involvement and enrichment of Englishmen in that vile trade was utterly reprehensible. To their credit the British later led the world in the virtual eradication…

Various analyses suggest that around 40% of U.S. COVID-19 deaths have taken place at nursing homes. While the data will be refined over time, it’s clear that nursing home residents are an extremely vulnerable population in a pandemic. An article at The American Conservative (June 5) called “Continued Isolation Will…

On April 25 we celebrated ANZAC Day, the annual commemoration of Australia’s and New Zealand’s participation in the Gallipoli campaign of the First World War. The campaign failed in its objectives and our troops withdrew having suffered terrible losses over several bitter months of struggle. There can’t be many countries whose…

Chris Arnade’s Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America recounts his four years of accompanying, and listening to, Americans who have been left behind. The book comes with striking photographs of the people to whom he introduces us. Many he meets at the local McDonald’s or a storefront church. Arnade…

I went alone for a long walk around my neighborhood after California’s self-quarantine advisory. A bit fatigued, I sat to rest on a bus-stop metal bench, the kind with handles between the seats. The traffic at this local intersection was now a tenth of the usual rush hour traffic. A…

Mount Mary University, a small Catholic women’s college in Milwaukee, recently announced plans to build housing for both single mothers and retired nuns as a residential community. The project is a collaboration between the college, the School Sisters of Notre Dame, and Milwaukee Catholic Home. Three buildings will contain 90…

Jack, a member of our writing group, invited us to an appetizer party one afternoon after Christmas. On arriving, I rang the doorbell but heard no sound and saw only one car parked outside. I rang the bell again, then phoned to ask if I had the wrong time and…