The Narthex
Was Pilate Blonde?
He may have died 2,000 years ago, but his voice still rings in the halls of the Praetorium
By John M. Grondelski | November 25th 2024 12:23 PMThings sometimes appear in social media seemingly out of nowhere, though one suspects they surface as “click-bait” created to generate readers’ reactions. That’s what I thought on Sunday when my X.com feed resurfaced a talk by National Public Radio chief executive Katherine Maher (her talk is linked below). The video…
READ FULL BLOG POSTTischner on Cemeteries
They remind us that man has no permanent home in this world
By John M. Grondelski | November 19th 2024 12:47 PMNovember is the month dedicated to prayer for the faithful departed. Many Catholics visit cemeteries during November. For that reason I want to share Father Józef Tischner’s reflections on cemeteries, found in the just-released translation of one of his seminal works, The Philosophy of Drama. Tischner is most known as…
READ FULL BLOG POSTIt’s Existential
On buzzwords and on reaching Mars sometime soon
By James Hanink | October 16th 2024 6:11 PMA respected, and now suspected, newspaper once pledged to give subscribers “All the news that’s fit to print.” Today, that same paper violates its pledge both by commission and omission. Time for a new slogan? Here’s a suggestion: “All the propaganda that will fit.” And yet I read the rag,…
READ FULL BLOG POSTBeneath the Surface
Real thinking is hard. But we can flourish only if we think carefully
By James Hanink | October 3rd 2024 11:17 AMHannah Arendt contended, and controversially, that the source of what she called “the banality of evil” is that people simply don’t, and won’t, think. The resultant evil is endemic under totalitarian and autocratic regimes. It’s only commonplace under liberal and quasi-democratic and bureaucrat institutions! But this sorry state of affairs…
READ FULL BLOG POSTGrumpy Old Men
Can they be saints? God does write straight with crooked lines
By James Hanink | August 26th 2024 12:07 AMSome of my best friends are grumpy old men. So the question arises: Can they be saints? Let’s hope so. Keep in mind, gentle reader, that not so long ago a concerned lady, a scholar of note, asked me whether the NOR itself had fallen into the hands of grumpy…
READ FULL BLOG POSTA New St. Dominic?
The first generation of Dominicans managed to turn France around and defeat heresy
By John M. Grondelski | August 8th 2024 11:57 AMAlasdair MacIntyre, in his important book After Virtue, suggests what the world needs today is “another -- doubtless very different -- Saint Benedict.” Some might argue that Pope Benedict XVI was that new “Benedict” speaking to the modern world. I’d like to suggest what the world needs today is a…
READ FULL BLOG POSTThou Shalt Post the Ten Commandments
Louisiana is right in privileging the laws inscribed by the Creator in every human heart
By John M. Grondelski | June 21st 2024 12:13 PMDavid 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…
READ FULL BLOG POST'Religious Reasons'
If religion is relegated to personal feeling, then opposition to immoral acts can’t be serious, right?
By James Hanink | June 13th 2024 8:07 PMWe’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…
READ FULL BLOG POSTOn Dignity: Doubling Down
'Dignitatis Infinita' distinguishes four dimensions of our dignity
By James Hanink | May 3rd 2024 4:48 PMEven Alasdair MacIntyre, among the greatest of living Thomists, thinks that believers might do better to argue from justice rather than to appeal to human dignity. And Harvard’s Steven Pinker writes derisively of the “stupidity of dignity.” Critics admit that the rhetoric of dignity surfaces in the United Nations Universal…
READ FULL BLOG POSTThe Difference between Moral Obligation & Self-Will
The 'right to define meaning & the universe' only works if you make yourself author & lord of that universe
By John M. Grondelski | April 30th 2024 12:06 PMOver 65 years ago Karol Wojtyła wrote on “The Significance of Obligation.” In that text, Wojtyła probed the universal human experience of obligation -- “I ought to do X” -- asking what it tells us about itself. That experience teaches us three things: about obligation itself, about responsibility, and about…
READ FULL BLOG POSTNatural Law & the Public Forum
Key points about natural law, its foundation, and how to introduce it into debate
By James Hanink | April 19th 2024 11:07 AMIn Catholic circles the concept of natural law is fairly familiar. I say “fairly” because I’m not sure that many Catholics could give an account of what natural law is. I’m even less sure that many Catholics could draw on natural-law thought when, and if, they enter debates in the…
READ FULL BLOG POSTBeyond Apathy or Outrage
Putting everything in God’s hands, we see that He puts many things back into ours
By James Hanink | March 23rd 2024 7:57 PMWhen sorely pressed, my mother often said, “Let’s put it all in God’s hands.” Such was the path to peace. But of what sort? Friends of the indefatigable socialist Norman Thomas often commented that he never lost his capacity for outrage. But to what end? Of late, both Mom’s adage…
READ FULL BLOG POSTCriminal Gangs, Then and Now
For criminals and criminal states alike, it is in no way lawful to slay the innocent
By James Hanink | February 15th 2024 1:04 PMChange is a constant, with mixed results. But so, too, is a grim stasis, a permanent condition in this Vale of Tears. With regard to change, the players surely change. In St. Augustine’s time, the Roman Empire still held sway, though invaders from the North stormed its borders and sought…
READ FULL BLOG POSTLiberalism Run Amok
An incoherent and self-defeating liberalism undermines the democracy it professes
By James Hanink | January 18th 2024 12:40 PM“Thought blockers,” I call them. Right, left, conservative, reactionary, and progressive, they get in the way of the real discussion of real issues. They are elastic terms that could mean just about anything or almost nothing. Still, my caveat is prudential rather than absolute. So, I’m going into the deep…
READ FULL BLOG POSTA Crack in the Wall
Philosophy is about much more than critical thinking and landing a job
By James Hanink | November 29th 2023 2:52 PMThe L.A. Times, a newspaper that I love to lambaste, seems to have a crack in its “wokeness wall.” A fresh editorial headline announces that “Students lose when colleges trade humanities for STEM” (Nov. 26). But wait! Science, tech, engineering, and math programs (STEM) now rule the academic roost. Is…
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