My essay on Shia LeBoeuf ‘s conversion in The Federalist avoided stressing the obvious: the Latin Mass has no cure for clinical narcissism. Or sociopathy. It did not seem necessary to press the point. But judging from responses, I was wrong. More than a few readers were anxious to view LeBoeuf—actor, performance artist, filmmaker—with sympathetic trust. Some invoked St. Augustine. Clearly, the piece had been too delicate. I should have been more explicit: In his self-referential interview with Bishop Barron he impressed me more as a con-artist than a convert. Continue Reading

9/11 & The Pedagogy of Amnesia

Maureen Mullarkey

September 11, 2022

A new generation of voters will go to the polls this year with no memory of 9/11. What knowledge they might have of it has been given to them in classrooms sodden with ideological agendas and careless of history. Careless of the truth of things. In American Thinker this morning Pamela Geller asks:

Twenty-one years on, and where are we? What do our children know about 9/11 and the Islamic terrorists who attacked our country in the worst attack on our homeland in American history?

America Magazine: A Sentimental Education

Maureen Mullarkey

August 3, 2022

America bills itself as the go-to publication for “thinking Catholics and those who want to know what Catholics are thinking.” Distressingly often, the Jesuit flagship puts me in mind of the hookah-smoking Caterpillar who shouts to Alice “I’ve something important to say!” Sometimes it really does. Other times I wonder if St. Ignatius has his regrets. My wonderment spikes when the editors prod me to think deeply about the eco-spirituality of Pope Francis. Laudato Sí placed environmental issues at the heart of Christian concern. Continue Reading

Art Appreciation: Pope Francis, Chagall, & Bolsheviks

Maureen Mullarkey

March 25, 2022

Is papal art appreciation all that it seems? Pope Francis once cited Chagall’s “White Crucifixion” as one of his two favorite paintings. Perhaps he really meant it. Or maybe his stated preference was a cost-free instance of diplospeak. A polite ceremonial gesture to cover an entrenched imbalance in his Middle East sympathies? Either way, as an expression of sympathy for the Jewish people, papal art appreciation is easy but insubstantial. It is no substitute for unambiguous support for Israel, a tiny Jewish state targeted for extinction from the date of its founding. Continue Reading

Crucifixion, Metaphor, & Marc Chagall

Maureen Mullarkey

March 7, 2022

Born Moiche Zakharovitch Chagalov, Chagall never resolved his conflict between affinity for Yiddish culture and ambition to mark his place in the timeline of modern Western art. The tension took a toll on his instinct for painting. But let us not begin there. Better to start with Brad Miner’s essay “Marc Chagall’s Jesus,” for The Catholic Thing. It distills the reasons why Chagall’s work continues to resonate. And it provides context for “White Crucifixion” (1938), the best known of Chagall’s many interpretations of the crucifixion theme:

Chagall was living [for a second time] in Paris at this point, and news of the Kristallnacht pogrom and other attacks on Jews were the impetus for the creation of “White Crucifixion.”