The Narthex

Over the past few years, and especially during 2020 as America burned to the cheers of the woke, we have often heard the words “civil war” pronounced by pundits and scholars. America was on the verge of a civil war, we were told. As the crowds in the streets swelled…

On average nearly 150,000 people die throughout the world every single day, from all causes, amounting to a total of more than 55 million each year. Those totals should be constantly in our minds as a sort of yardstick or backdrop to our consideration of the numbers reported slain by…

Charlie Camosy, a stalwart of the American Solidarity Party, argues that we should condemn the Capitol violence of “1-6” without using words like "sacred" and "temple" and "desecration." In his view, they are “not appropriate words for a place which (while very significant) is not sacred, not a temple, and…

It is written: He who lives by the sword will perish by the sword. Donald Trump has spent the last four years running his presidential administration as an extension of his wrestling career. He has blustered and play-acted his way through the duties of the office, and trafficked in late-night…

The dilemma we Catholics face in every election is having to decide which flawed candidate to vote for. Few Catholics in politics have the courage to buck their party’s platform and speak up for traditional moral tenets. The Catholic Voter Guide says one may not vote for an enemy of…

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…

With the presidential election approaching, my brother and I were discussing the sad state of affairs in our beloved America: riots, conflict between liberals and conservatives, deteriorating infrastructure coast to coast, and excess national debt. My brother owns and operates several successful businesses, so he knows what it takes to…

When I hear “Q,” I think of Quelle. Quelle is the German word for “source.” Philologists in the early twentieth century who studied the Synoptic Gospels (the Gospel of St. John is obviously sui generis, but the Gospels of Sts. Matthew, Mark, and Luke often overlap) began to wonder whether…

Religion ought to have sheltered American democracy from the dangers of irreligion, as de Tocqueville famously observed, but it did not. This practical failure of religion in part explains the surprise election of Donald Trump in 2016. Trump’s supporters are not as anxious about the fate of their country—although, to…

My wife and I were sitting in Pann’s, a local eatery. Filmmakers use it to get “real life” footage. Service at Pann’s is also real life, as in slow. Rena, in her mid-90’s, stopped by our table, sequins shining, to schmooze. With her husband, decades ago she’d started the place.…