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January 2019

January 10, 2019

Fr. C. John McCloskey, Opus Dei, and me

In late January, 2009, I made a retreat at Opus Dei’s Shellbourne Conference Center, outside...

December 2018

December 07, 2018

‘Mine instrument’

Holiday season in Illinois means holiday displays at the Illinois State Capitol building, under the...

December 03, 2018

The season of Advent

G.K. Chesterton wrote beautifully of Christmas, both in poetry, such as “The Christ-Child in Mary’s...

November 2018

November 14, 2018

The crown of the Christmas feast

The Christmas pudding is the crown of the Christmas feast. It has no equal. Before...

November 04, 2018

A hard life; a good life

The week of October 22, as I wrote here, one of President Trump’s supporters mailed...

October 2018

October 30, 2018

We must keep rising up

America: terror nation. After last week, the week of October 22, twenty-one months into the...

October 24, 2018

Harrowing and beautiful

Fear is the relinquishment of logic, the willing relinquishing of reasonable patterns. We yield to...

September 2018

September 22, 2018

Happy Hobbit Day

I nearly forgot to wish everyone a Happy Hobbit Day. Hobbit Day is September 22,...

September 18, 2018

A Pope Like No Other

“When Christ at a symbolic moment was establishing His great society, He chose for its...

September 10, 2018

A Nasty Bit of Backstabbing

Pope Francis and President Donald Trump do not have much in common, but one characteristic...

September 05, 2018

A constitutional crisis

I’d like to say a few words about Wednesday’s anonymous op-ed in the New York...

July 2018

July 27, 2018

Prepare for winter

Game of Thrones, the TV adaptation of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice...

July 23, 2018

Donald Trump: an update

If President Trump was hoping to divert attention from his policy of kidnapping and caging...

June 2018

June 20, 2018

U.S.-Mexico border crisis: follow-up

First, Deborah Piroch of Human Life International, sends this follow-up comment to my Wednesday piece:...

June 20, 2018

Pro-life and pro-family movements: coming up short

“Thanks for contacting Human Life International,” spokeswoman Deborah M. Piroch replied when I contacted HLI...

June 14, 2018

Discover G.K. Chesterton

Today, June 14, 2018, was the 82nd anniversary of the death of G.K. Chesterton. I...

June 14, 2018

Anthony Bourdain, R.I.P.

In Las Vegas, as long as you’re gambling, the drinks are free. In Granada, Spain,...

June 08, 2018

“Who is my neighbor?”

“Lord, who is my neighbor?” This is a thornier question than it appears on the...

May 2018

May 24, 2018

‘Is politics fantastic?’

"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember...

May 19, 2018

Let’s politicize this

I am going to politicize a tragedy. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has gotten...

May 19, 2018

The Tide is Turning

Note: first published in February, 2018, as a guest post on Suspended in Her...

May 17, 2018

In the arena

Before Friday, May 4, the last arena rock concert I attended was The Who, in...

May 17, 2018

Illinois House resolution: update

The Illinois House resolution condemning white nationalism, which I wrote about last week, was voted...

May 15, 2018

Tom Wolfe, rest in peace

If you read one book by Tom Wolfe, it should be The Right Stuff. What...

May 14, 2018

Alfie Evans, part II: parental rights and more

In Part I we discussed whether Alfie Evans’ death was murder. Here, we delve more...

May 11, 2018

Alfie Evans, part I: no, it was not murder

Quoting G.K. Chesterton is always dangerous, but especially if you quote him to serve a...

May 10, 2018

Be it resolved: ride the nightmare

It should not be hard to pass a resolution condemning neo-Nazis and white nationalists. At...