The Narthex

Nineteen Sixty-four is a research blog for the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University. The blog periodically posts research findings which are often accompanied by helpful graphs and charts. A pre-COVID post at Nineteen Sixty-four offers data on U.S. Catholic parish closures and openings, and…

According to the meaning of the term woke, I better wake up to my ingrained pride and prejudice. Maybe I’m unaware of my racism and misogyny because I’m a senior and an Italian Catholic. As a thoroughbred descendent of the Roman Empire, I believe there are only two kinds of…

On the first warm day of spring, some vagrants came out of their nooks and hideaways to congregate in the local park for fellowship. Several men, old and young, sat together at a stone picnic table, chatting, eating, and drinking beer or cheap wine early in the day. During the…

The U.S. Census Bureau has released data from what it calls an "experimental" Household Pulse Survey on the impact of COVID-19 on homeschooling rates. The survey shows a "substantial increase" from spring of 2020 to the start of the current school year. The survey-makers made sure their questioning was clear…

I started working at the NEW OXFORD REVIEW in October 2020. Well, that’s not true. I started before I can remember. I read galleys in high school and college. I folded renewals and endorsed checks all throughout middle school. I opened mail in elementary school; granted, early on it…

Vatican Council II counsels us to search out “the signs of the times.” The Latin, “signa perscrutandi” suggests the keen scrutiny this involves. One sign of our calamitous times is the invasion of the slogans of the day. What’s the difference between a sign and a slogan? A sign points,…

Some billionaires have asked to be taxed more, and that is about to happen. Golden State legislators are pushing a first-in-the-nation net wealth tax bill, called AB-2088, that would affect some 300 Californians with a net worth of $30 million or more. Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, has $118 billion…

I often visited a retirement complex to see my friend, Della. She would serve me cinnamon tea while we talked about religion and current events. An oil painting of a yellow canary hung on her living room wall. As I admired several other works, she said, “I painted them all.…

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,…