The Narthex

Roger Whittaker, the Kenyan-born British singer who died last year, was best known for his ballad “The Last Farewell.” But the words of another Whittaker song, “Durham Town,” came to my mind yesterday. “Durham Town” is about a boy growing up, becoming gradually detached from and eventually having to leave…

Rare is the New York Times op-ed to which I refer readers and encourage them to read it. But I do so wholeheartedly as regards “This Is What Elite Failure Looks Like” by Oren Cass (July 6; linked below). Cass pulls no punches. Eighty-three thousand Americans died of opioid overdoses…

Marinette, Wisconsin, is a small town and a county seat north of Green Bay. As reported by National Review (July 5; a link to the story is below), there’s a K-12 Catholic school in town that’s been around more than a century. Also, the local school board, with declining enrollments,…

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?”  …

Six months ago, you were toasting the new year 2024. Six months from now, hopefully you will say goodbye to 2024 and welcome the new year 2025, the quarter century mark. We just celebrated Midsummer’s Night on June 21-22. We’re now at midyear. “Midsummer” you say? Wasn’t it just the…

What happens when you google “spiritual director near me”? You’ll instantly find an assortment of spiritualists and their handy contact information. Not what you are looking for? Better keep looking and look elsewhere. Take your time. A priest friend who is a spiritual director at a Benedictine Abbey says that…

Last Friday’s tone-deaf remarks by Vatican Communications Dicastery Prefect Paolo Ruffini saying he saw no reason not to continue using the art of ex-Jesuit sex abuser Marko Rupnik on Vatican products has drawn two distinct responses. Most of the Catholic press has ignored the story -- not only nothing to…

Last Sunday’s readings had a lot to say about the waters. The primary focus was on the Gospel, in which Jesus calms the storm on the Sea of Galilee. Many Biblical commentators note that Jesus’ miracles can be grouped into two primary categories: miracles concerning nature (like this one) and…

Catholic World Report carries an article about Paolo Ruffini, the Prefect of the Dicastery for Communications, who recently made a spirited defense of the Vatican’s ongoing use of Marko Rupnik’s art. His apologia came in remarks to press at the Catholic Media Conference in Atlanta June 21. According to the…

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…

“Sleek barbarians” is a term and concept articulated by contemporary Polish philosopher Zbigniew Stawrowski which I have tried to popularize and disseminate in the English-speaking world. I do so because the concept seems to have even broader application here than in Poland (though Poland does not lack for its own…

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…

Sunday’s readings said a lot about trees and their growth. The First Reading spoke about God, who fosters some trees and withers others. The Gospel spoke of the tiny mustard seed that produces a large tree. The Catholic poet Joyce Kilmer wrote a poem, “Trees,” that was once standard fare in…

We’re told that it’s for “religious reasons” that someone opposes abortion. And it’s for “religious reasons” that someone opposes euthanasia. So we read in, for example, newspapers of record like the L.A. Times. What we don’t read, of course, is that someone opposes the policy of nuclear deterrence for religious…

Classical Education is a fast-growing movement. Its emphasis has shifted from a close attention to linguistics to a broad focus on those subjects that particularly distinguish humanity from the beasts: grammar, logic, and rhetoric. The ancients called these the Trivium. The fact that our word trivial comes from that says…