The Narthex

Part 3 provided one piece of shockingly good news coming out of Notre Dame. The second piece of shockingly good news is the number of Notre Dame students studying theology. When I was researching the state of the Catholic Faith at Notre Dame, I ran across the following article stating…

In Parts 1 and 2, I promised to describe the shockingly good news coming out of Notre Dame. Before I get to the shockingly good news, let me describe the simply good news for those readers not familiar with the campus or with its history (aside from football). For those…

In Part 1, linked below, I described the shockingly bad news coming out of Notre Dame. I promised that in Part 2 I would describe the shockingly good news. Instead, in this Part 2, I provide an update on the bad news described in Part 1. The good news will…

“Ivan Ilych has died,” an acquaintance reads from the announcement of a formal obituary. Having followed earlier reports of Ivan’s mysterious illness, his colleagues in the judiciary are not surprised. In his classic story “The Death of Ivan Ilych,” Tolstoy recounts how they mourn in keeping with the hardness of…

Folks, the good news out of the University of Notre Dame is shockingly good. The bad news out of Notre Dame is shockingly bad. I’ll start with the bad. On January 8, 2026, Notre Dame announced that a professor, Susan Ostermann, is being appointed, effective July 1, as director of…

Is ours the best of all possible worlds? The philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) thought so, and it’s a positive thought, isn’t it? But how could we know whether his claim is true? Can we even specify what would make it so? (Politicians, to be sure, often boast…

The Church’s weekday readings are making their way through the glory days of kingship in Israel, the reigns of David and Solomon. (That is to contrast them with the less-than-glorious rulers, subsequent to the division of Israel and Judah.) On Saturday, the First Reading featured Solomon’s prayer for wisdom, wisdom…

In verses ten through twelve of Isaiah chapter 58, the Lord speaks through the prophet:

And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon day: and the Lord…

Not too long ago, Republicans were the party of free speech. Tired of being shut out of debates and shut up about everything, they styled themselves as free speech champions while trying to claw back some traction in the groves of academe and the halls of political power. But then…

There’s no shortage of true crime, and there hasn’t been since Cain murdered Abel. Fast forward and, turning from fratricide to parricide, we have the murders of Rob and Michelle Reiner, allegedly at the hands of their son. Nor is there any shortfall of state violence. The protests in response…

The recent swearing in of New York mayor Zohran Mamdani on the Quran has reignited a conversation that America prefers to keep comfortably superficial. Thus, public debate has circled symbols, optics, and inclusivity language while missing the heavier matter that involves history, Scripture, and moral philosophy. In recent years the…

The title of a recent New York Times op-ed (“The Trouble with My Father’s Resting Place,” Jan. 2) caught my eye because it seemed, for once, that maybe somebody else had recognized the point I’ve long made: cremation deprives people of a final resting place. (Ultimately, that recognition didn't happen.) The…

Here in California there’s a debate about licensing cosmetologists. For my part, I wish there weren’t any to license. Plato would understand. In his Gorgias he compared politicians with cosmeticians. Both are busy about disguising reality. Cosmologists are another matter altogether. They’re the folks keen to answer the big questions…

On Christmas Day, holy and radiant, we stand at the turning point of all human longing, a longing that began at the gates of Eden and echoed through every generation that followed. From the first moment of rupture between God and man, the world has carried a deep ache for…

How Politicians Coopt the Christian Message – with Christian Complicity Earlier I voiced objection to the Massachusetts nativity scene that replaced Baby Jesus with an “ICE was here” sign because it diverts from the purpose of a Nativity scene. A manger on public view is a proclamation of faith in…