The Narthex

We moderns hear a lot about miracles. Modern medicine is a miracle, we’re told. Landing rovers on Mars, or on distant asteroids, requires a miraculous degree of technological sophistication. Marvels—miracles’ kid brothers—are a dime a dozen in 2023. Video phones, space telescopes, ChatGPT. Wow. Aren’t we human beings special. Miraculous,…

Does democracy need prophets? Yes, especially in a democracy like ours, because ours is in crisis. Distorted by a duopoly lusting for power, our political discourse has become a concatenation of cliches. And most of us seem to sleep through the affairs of state. The prophets we need, to be…

With Mother’s Day in the rear view mirror and fresh events crowding the daily “news” cycle, the controversy some retailers generated this year by offering women an “opt out” of Mother’s Day mailings and specials will likely soon be forgotten -- until it returns next year. I’ve tried to showcase…

As a moral theologian, I am interested in just war theory. Just war theory, which governs whether a country can go to war (jus ad bellum) and what it can do in war (jus in bello), is essentially a nation’s right to self-defense. That’s why I reject the arguments that…

Life is a mystery to live, not a problem to solve. And metaphysics is rich in mystery! Here’s a contrast. Science often advances by resolution and replacement. For example, Galileo resolves Ptolemy’s puzzles, and heliocentrism emerges. Einstein resolves Newton’s puzzles, and the theory of relativity replaces classical physics. Closer to…

A friend just authored an important paper on why religious freedom is a human right. I agree that it is, and I applaud the range and rigor of his analysis. He’ll catch a lot of flak, though. Not everyone thinks that religion is for the good, much less that it…

Felix, my youngest grandson, has aged out of Sesame Street. Since leaving, though, he calls himself “The Count.” Of late he’s busy counting his Legos. Trump, keen to remain POTUS, wanted more votes to count. No luck. Of late he’s counting the legal actions he faces. For better or worse,…

I like “Ike,” as I’ll call him. He was a catalyst for the pre-synod “listening session” that my seminary friends of yesteryear recently held. For my part I only “listened in” on the session. Then I offered a critique here, in a blog post. Ike didn’t much like what he…

Who me? Lament my lifestyle? No, I don’t even know what it is. But I do lament and bemoan the overuse of the word lifestyle. That is, if it has any worthy use at all. Why do I take umbrage? Of course, there’s a place for style. I wish there…

“That was rude.” So said the love of my life and not for the first time. She was addressing me! It was, sad to say, a fairly familiar accusation. And yet we should hold fast to the legal maxim that the accused is innocent until proven guilty. As is a…

Truth-telling dialogue has its hazards. Patience wears thin. Distractions can demonize. So it is, gentle reader, that I return, a bit aggravated, to the dialogue with my one-time mentor and longtime radical Karl Meyer. What we share, in varying ways, is the legacy of the Catholic Worker. I’m aggravated because…

In recent posts I contested the “dignity deniers” Ruth Macklin and Steven Pinker. I noted also, with grave doubts, Alasdair MacIntyre’s annual Notre Dame lecture in which he suggests that everything dignity can do justice can do better. Those posts, gentle readers, offer a background to my ongoing dialogue with…

In the year’s most discussed philosophical lecture, Alasdair MacIntyre—at Notre Dame, no less—argued that appeals to dignity don’t work very well and can even be dangerous. On MacIntyre’s view, dignity can be lost. Hitler shows us just how. Moreover, recognizing that dignity is incompatible with slavery is of little worth…

Transparency is important. Interested in the latest batch of election returns? In California, the Secretary of State posts them in real time. Concerned about what Rome’s doing with the yearly Peter’s Pence collection? An audit is in order, isn’t it? Wondering about what Corporate is concocting? Try lobbying for more…

Being conservative has very little to do with the political left or the political right. We at the Christopher Dawson Centre for Cultural Studies are not right-wingers. Though some of our views might be characterized as right-wing, we hold many opinions that would commonly be regarded as more typical of…