The Twelve Days of Christmas are over. But the Christmas season does not end officially until Candlemas, February 2nd. That leaves time to revel in images that have delighted me all of my life. The magic of their pictorial agility never flags. Their graphic intelligence—linear and compositional elegance, or what the old Italians called disegno—displays […]

The Patristic Institute Augustinianum wrote to correct me. There will be no conference of European cosmetic surgeons at the Vatican’s Patristic Institute Augustinianum. It was a hoax. And I fell for it. Mea maxima culpa. I am chagrined for having let myself be taken in. Now I really am blushing. I allowed my distaste for […]

Many are called but few are chosen. There are sayings of Christ which suggest that the Church he came to establish will always be a minority affair. (Edward Norman) Edward Norman has been on my mind recently. At seventy eight, he belongs to that generation of scholar-priests we cannot afford to lose. Not now. Better […]