The Narthex

Several of my neighbors are overweight. One young woman can hardly squeeze into her shiny sports-car, which she pays others to keep spotlessly clean and mirror-waxed. Another family's grown kids are each well over 250 pounds. Though the parents seem in decent shape, their eldest son, in his forties and…

Guardian journalist Van Badham has defined Western civilization in purely negative and derogatory terms: “a racist colonial project to crush, change, enslave, eradicate or genocidally erase other cultures.” It is difficult to regard a person who could write such a thing as quite sane. Christopher Dawson insisted that the Christian…

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…

In order to learn how to recognize holiness in laypersons, we have looked at people by occupation. Let's finish with a few more: Artists Do you think any of the following Catholic artists were holy? Consider the painters Giotto (c. 1267-1337), Michelangelo (1475-1564), Raphael (1483-1520), Rubens (1577-1640), Jan van Eyck…

I arise each morning, stumble to the sink, wash my face, and then stare in horror at the sagging, wrinkled jowls in the mirror. What happened to your youth, old boy? Yet, I don’t feel old; I can still huff and puff up big hills. That face in the mirror…

Wherever you reside, gentle reader, I have some advice. Don’t run for governor in your fair state. Yes, I can well imagine your asking “Who needs such advice?” And if you are a sensible person, the very idea of doing so has never crossed your mind. Unless, that is, you…

Continuing our discussion of recognizing lay holiness, let us look at philanthropists. We could discuss the donors of large sums -- $10 million, $100 million -- to causes consistent with Catholic social teaching, including Catholic schools, hospitals, and more. Many such donors take advantage of “naming rights” -- for buildings,…

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…

The goal of Australia’s Dawson Centre, of which I am director, is not evangelization: that is a task for others to undertake. Our role is to revive and justify the Christian intellectual tradition, to argue for the essentially rational nature of belief based squarely upon Faith and Reason. Faith is not at…

I stood with 50 other engineers the morning of September 11, 2001, staring at a widescreen TV. In shocked disbelief, we gawked at another Boeing 767 passenger plane colliding into the second WTC tower, and finally, both towers cascading into a smoky heap. I shook my head, thinking this will…

This has been a long and tumultuous year for the church-going faithful of California, particularly in San Francisco, where church doors have been shut, locked, and all but barricaded. Worshiping on devices, Bay Area Catholics endured months of separation from the true presence of our Lord. Easter and Christmas, the…

Would you say that any of the following Catholics, and their spouses, were holy? Writers The married couple Frank Sheed (1897-1982) and Maisie Ward (1889-1975) were writers and founders of a great Catholic publishing house, Sheed & Ward, in 1926. They had a son and a daughter. Other prominent lay…

Twenty years of clerical sex abuse scandals have rocked the Church. I heard that in 2002, after the Boston Globe reports, some clergy took to wearing civilian clothes in public to avoid heckling. A part of me was thankful that I had not become a brother or religious priest at…

How does it look when men and women strive for holiness at work? Let's take examples from various occupations: Entertainers/TV-Film Personalities Among prominent Catholic entertainers is convert Alec Guinness (1914-2000). (See Guinness’s first of three autobiographies, Blessings in Disguise, from 1986.) See also his portrayal as G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown…

With apologies for being prescriptive, I recommend that you watch the two-part documentary on the Hitler Youth movement, Hitler-Jugend. Its impact is terrifying, and it uses color footage that most of us have never seen before. But the important thing is that it demonstrates unforgettably the power and the naivety…