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Maureen Mullarkey: Studio Matters

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Sacred Art vs. Sacred Subject

Fanaticism in matters of sacred art is an attitude that can lead to a decadence more sterile than the one we are now endeavoring to overcome. Maurice Lavanoux, “The Authentic Tradition and Art,,” Liturgical Arts (1954) This past Saturday I caught a late afternoon train into the city for the last night of One Faith, […]

Matt Ridley & Politics of Bad Ideas

Every First Things reader should spend a few minutes with Matt Ridley’s “The Climate Wars’ Damage to Science,” in the current issue [June 19, 2015] of Quadrant, Australia’s leading monthly. Neither the pope nor the encyclical are mentioned. Nevertheless, Ridley’s article is supremely relevant to a full grasp of what Laudato Si signifies.  His article […]

Post-Encyclical Readings

Snared by the hot button issues of the day, we serve ourselves best by standing back a bit and reading, or rereading, previous texts that anchor the mind in the longue durée. Or at least release us from the pressures of the moment. Philip Larkin’s quip that sex began in 1963 applies to a great […]

Liturgy as Mission

I came away from last week’s Sacra Liturgia conference in New York on something of a high. It was exhilarating to see a large audience drawn to Mass in the Extraordinary Form. I had half expected the majority to be older, primarily the generation born into the traditional Latin Mass. But no. Here was an […]

Trans-Fixed For Sure

  Decadence was brought about by .  .  .  the surfeit of fine art and the love of the bizarre.                                                      Voltaire (1748) Chris Burden died last month, close to Caitlyn Jenner’s birth on Wikipedia. Timing is everything. Burden gained world fame as a performance artist in the genre’s heyday. Self-wounding was integral to the […]

Raking A Grave

I raked a grave last evening. It was twilight when I got there. Little time was left to work. It was just enough. The race against sunset and total darkness was a welcome distraction from the ache of tending a grave that had to be dug too soon. Ground was opened before the actuarial tables […]

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