The Narthex

The Bald and the Unbeautiful Head shaving has been among the jejune reactions of some frenzied women to Kamala Harris’s implosion. Social media is full of these virtue signalers demonstrating why haircuts should only be done by trained professionals. I’m surprised Biden’s FDA has not demanded warning disclaimers on these…

Social media is beset by hysterical women and soy boys having collective hissy-fits and meltdowns that their country has “betrayed” them by electing Donald Trump. A certain Schadenfreude has led to re-postings of breakdowns, and to normal people asking whether they're real. Alas, they are real. They're real and they…

Though I’d seen billboards for tattoo conventions, I’d never been to one. Then, of a sudden, I was in the middle of one. There it was, in the lobby of the hotel where the American Maritain Association was holding its annual conference. Every day we’re all seeing more tattoos. Pew…

Michael Novak’s The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics (1972) generated an ethnic pride movement in the 1970s. Americans of Eastern and Southern European ancestry, Latinos, and others came out of the WASP shadows to acknowledge that their heritage remained -- and legitimately remained -- part of their American identity. I…

Stress The New York Times recently reported (July 10) about workplace “stress” and the emergence of a new job: “burnout coach.” Apparently, so many employed people are so stressed and burned out in their jobs that they need the therapeutic voice of a “burnout coach” to help them cope. The…

Good Question Bumper stickers are often great statements of truth, largely because they have to be short and pithy. A message to Catholic tailgaters seen on the rear of a car parked outside St. James in Falls Church, Virginia: “Do you follow Christ as closely as you do me?”  …

David French is one of a particular species of pundit, one who likes to trade on the gases of his erstwhile conservative credentials while reliably ending up where good liberals are expected to be. It was that imitation of the Colossus of Rhodes’ straddle that initially led to his famous…

The patria potestas was a legal power held by fathers in the Roman Empire. If you think that Tiberius was just dad in a toga, think again. In Roman law, a father had rights over his family, including the right of who could bear his name. If, therefore, a child…

In the old Catholic catechism, four sins were identified as “crying to heaven for vengeance” – murder, sodomy, defrauding workers of their wages, and oppression of the widow and orphan. Outrage, rightly understood, is a moral thing. To be outraged at injustice, especially when it is tolerated or even pronounced…

Has our modern world made things that, for earlier generations came naturally, harder? And, in fact, do those things have to be harder? Tim Carney, author of Family Unfriendly, says there are contemporary changes in society that do make being a parent harder, both objectively (if kids don’t have sidewalks,…

Etiquette as an expectation and as part of upbringing was once taken for granted. For a German, to say somebody lacks Kinderstube is an insult: it means that person is wanting in upbringing. He is boorish. Kinderstube was taken for granted because people rightly assumed that living with others in society is…

Ex ore infantium comes from Psalm 8:3, “from the mouths of babes and infants.” I was reminded of that phrase recently while watching a perhaps unfairly neglected movie from 1965, “The Battle of the Villa Fiorita.” The film, starring Maureen O’Hara and Rossano Brazzi, is based on a book by…

I was amazed the first time I heard it. President Trump apparently was too. People started chanting “We love you!” at his 2020 rallies, and this has continued into the current election cycle. Perhaps you haven’t known about this. For your sake, then, I found a few instances online: Nov.…

Calendar Conundrums Has it ever troubled our liturgically befuddled bishops, who have made a goulash of six holydays of obligation (transferring some while making others obligatory depending on their day in the week) that, in our modern world, if you say “January 6,” more people think of “insurrection” than “Epiphany?”…

I grasped my keys in my coat pocket. Good thing I bought a Honda: their ignition key is nice and long. Among moves that I learned in self-defense was that keys held between one’s index and middle finger can be effectively jabbed into somebody’s eyes, usually long enough to stop…