We are accustomed to thinking that verbal discourse (written or spoken) and visual communication are complementary. Word and image accompany each other, so we believe, in the same struggle to get to the truth of things. But maybe not. Could they be not only distinct but antagonistic ways of understanding? Or are images mere accessories […]
A tragic fault line runs through the approach of the American bishops to the 2016 election. On one side lies their traditional sympathy for immigration, extended now to embrace what amounts to open-borders and a reluctance to distinguish between legal immigrants and illegal ones. On the other is the indispensable Catholic opposition to abortion. However […]
We are well into August and I find myself still at the computer. It is not really where I want to be just now. There are travels to take—though not necessarily far from where I am sitting. A few yards will do it. I am impatient to stay put. The loveliest road maps are […]
Is there anything left to say? We have reached the moment words no longer matter. They stream out of us, a ceaseless procession of utterances in a media world which swallows them whole. Undigested, they nourish no one. A civilization hungry for extinction has no taste for anything but death. Between a quisling pontificate, […]
In response to the previous posting, a witty correspondent writes me this: Catholics should be quite at home in a Trump administration. We’ve been living under the same style of communication during this entire pontificate — absurd unscripted remark, inevitable walk back by the press office hacks, and a contradiction by the public figure the […]
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