2016

After Election Day Schadenfreude

A thoughtful reader responded to the improbable upset on Election Day by sending me these words of St. Gertrude (Gertrude of Helfta): “May the wounds of Christ make of no effect the handwriting that is against us.” They are sobering. When our giddiness subsides, and our schadenfreude—well earned and blameless this time—wears off, we would be wise to resume the prayer of this 13th century Benedictine mystic.   The handwriting is, indeed, against us. This election, delicious as it is to some of us, does not erase the baleful scrawl. Continue Reading
Our Vichy Church / Al Smith Dinner

It was impossible not to wince at Cardinal Dolan’s cozy gladhanding with that monstrous woman at the Al Smith Dinner. Leah Barkoukis, reporting for Town Hall, quoted our shepherd:
I was very moved by the obvious attempt on behalf of both Sec. Clinton and Mr. Trump … to be courteous, get along, to say nice things privately to one another. I was very moved by that, that was pleasant.
Pleasant! The word is a scandal in light of all that is at risk in this election. Continue Reading
The Bishops & Those Emails

Forgive me if I do not join the chorus calling for John Podesta’s resignation or—drum roll—a pro-forma apology from Hillary Clinton for derisive email comments by her staffers about Catholics. Hillary Clinton is corrupt to the marrow. She is guilty of actual crimes. But our shepherds avert their eyes from the squalor of Hillary Clinton’s behavior in office and her policy proposals. Instead, they take aim at the thought crimes of her campaign team.     Like Lewis Carroll’s Caterpillar, our bishops puff away on their—federally funded—hookahs, “taking not the smallest notice of her or of anything else.” Continue Reading
A Writer on Reading & Material Books

Books are the flesh of words. Not long ago I wrote that a material book will love you back, something an electronic book cannot do. Several literal-minded readers chided me, ever so gently, for making a romance out of ink on paper. The chiding was a challenge to hunt up testimony in support of my side. Let me enter into evidence Alberto Manguel’s A Reader on Reading (2010), an eloquent and enthralling excursion into books. He writes of preparing for a lengthy hospital stay. Continue Reading
The End Time Is Ever With Us

I put aside the day’s news with one thought: the end times are always with us. We do not have to wait for their approach—not tomorrow, not next year, not some distant century. They abide with us. We are forever in them. And every morning we awaken one day closer to the solitary Apocalypse that waits for each of us. It is easy to forget that the peace we are promised is eschatological, not historical. We have no guarantee of salvation in or through history. Continue Reading