The Narthex

In the mid-1960s, I could be seen on the Boston Common dressed in surplus military fatigues, complete with jacket and boots, sporting a chestnut brown beard. I wasn’t aware at the time that all us hippie rebels were enacting a spectacular resurgence of utopian socialism. Our rebel cause was to…

When the coronavirus pandemic subsides, and if we keep our wits about us, we’ll begin to reboot our economy. Even now, it’s high time to rethink our economy. I’d like to suggest two proposals for this project. One proposal is modest enough. The other, admittedly, is entirely and flagrantly immodest.…

Recently I read this news clip: “The Andromeda galaxy ate our sister galaxy, and now it’s coming for us.” An astrophysicist used poetic license to describe that star-studded dinner event but it got me thinking. Maybe I need to expand my narrow definition of living things. My biology textbook made…

If you ask people what they think was the most important thing that ever happened in the world, they’ll come up with some fascinating answers. Some will tell you it was the invention of the wheel. Others will plump for the telephone. Others perhaps the discovery of anesthetics. Few will…

Sometimes I feel like Rip van Winkle waking from a 20-year sleep to find drastic changes, not only social but technological as well. Our standard of living has improved more in the last 100 years than in all recorded history. Such rapid innovation is startling and wondrous. But it’s also…

Common sense is often in short supply. Far too many people go about their daily routines paying little attention to the role that social distancing plays in saving lives, including their own. That said, the pandemic also calls for “clarification of thought,” as Peter Maurin liked to say, about three…

I went alone for a long walk around my neighborhood after California’s self-quarantine advisory. A bit fatigued, I sat to rest on a bus-stop metal bench, the kind with handles between the seats. The traffic at this local intersection was now a tenth of the usual rush hour traffic. A…

Fr. Richard Perozich of Hawaii sent comments on Richard Dell'Orfano's blog post "The Grindstone" (March 24), which touched on boring homilies and overworked priests. Perozich writes:

As a priest I could be insulted that a lay Catholic said the homilies are dull, that he has to go to…

On May 4, 1940, my father embarked on the first voyage of the Queen Mary, since her conversion to a troop ship, to sail to the Middle East to fight the Axis powers. On board were 5,000 other members of the AIF – the Australian Imperial Force. My mother, like…

During a homily, the priest lifted our bored faces by boldly declaring, "So not everyone’s going to heaven.” A matronly woman sitting next to me looked up for a moment from thumbing her cell phone. Somehow assured that her Judgment Day was not imminent, she then returned to marking the…

Of late we’ve heard much about caution—indeed, an abundance of caution, and rightly so. My caveat about caution is this: that we keep it in context. The context is the virtue of prudence. And what is prudence? Above all it is right reason in acting. We shouldn’t confuse it with…

A young boy in my neighborhood walked up to me, spotting something in my hand. “What’s that?” he asked. William was a mixed-race child with handsome features. He was fatherless, so I once helped him fix his trainer bike. “It’s a chrysalis, I told him. “Soon the shell will split…

The Roman Empire lasted a long time despite its many emperors who were egomaniacs or just plain crazy. Nero may be the foremost example. What caused Rome's decline and fall was not only incompetent emperors, barbarian border enemies, or mass dementia from lead water pipes. The underlying reasons were more…

There are home truths that few politicians acknowledge. Occasionally, though, a politician throws caution to the wind. In his “American malaise speech” broadcast on national television in the summer of 1979, Jimmy Carter told the country that “All the legislation in the world can’t fix what’s wrong with America.” That’s…

The ancient use of herbs for medicinal purposes is well known. Coca leaves are still chewed by Peruvian natives in the High Andes to prevent altitude sickness. Poppy flowers yield opiates for pain relief. Curcumin research has shown it can shrink cancerous tumors even in the brain. Coca-cola capitalized on…