2016

Use & Abuse of Language

It is a short walk between linguistic priggery and the verbal bows and scrapes expected of us in talking about the great and the good. That thought nagged at me some months back at a symposium on “Freedom of Religion in the Age of Pope Francis.” To kick-start discussion, panelists were asked to say two things about Francis. Each was allotted a single yea and a single nay. A double yea might have been okay but, please, no double nays. Not even a stand-alone one. Continue Reading
Language Most Foul

Vulgarity, too, is in the eye of the beholder. Oscar Wilde acknowledged as much when he remarked: “Vulgar behavior is the behavior of other people.” Wilde’s admonition is worth keeping in mind—a mortification-in-waiting. As we have been told, God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. But while we keep an obliging eye out for our own vulgarities, it would be a shame to overlook everyone else’s. So stay with me a bit. •   •   •   •  When the temperature hits 90° I am ready to curse the heat myself. Continue Reading
Musical Life of English Catholics

If you are in or near Manhattan this coming Friday, May 27, you might take pleasure in this lovely program at St. Vincent Ferrer on Lexington Avenue between 65th and 66th Streets. Samuel Schmitt’s lecture, accompanied with live musical examples by early music specialists Charles Weaver, and Grant and Priscilla Herreid, promises to be wonderful. This is a rare opportunity to engage the riches of English Catholic musical and religious culture under the Tudors. The evening will bring to life the musical life of recusant Catholics—those who defied the Recusancy Laws by refusing to worship in the Anglican Church—in the time of Elizabeth. Continue Reading
Discerning the Will of God?

Are you never even a bit uncomfortable when someone claims to have discerned God’s will in this or that decision of their own? I certainly am. It is one thing to pray for discernment, but quite something else to announce being in receipt of it. When anyone tells me that, after much prayer, they have determined that God wants such-and-such from them—however worthy the suchness—something in me backs away. It is the telling that feels all wrong. It seems an impertinence. Continue Reading

Coverage of Pope Francis by the mainstream Catholic press is barely worth reading. It confuses the papacy—most especially, this particular pontificate—with the Church itself. Scrap the dominant Catholic punditry. Ignore anodyne broadcasts from the Vatican Press Office. Get your goods from somewhere off the ghetto newsstand. Go some place where insight into the character of this pontificate is not befogged by misplaced deference or courtier’s ambition. One place to go is Daniel Williams’ blog Next War Notes. Williams is the author of the recently published Forsaken: The Persecution of Christians in Today’s Middle East (2016). Continue Reading