When one reads the new atheists, one gets the impression that the influence of Christianity has been entirely baleful, that Christianity’s contribution to morality has been entirely negative, and that the United States, far from being a Christian country historically, is really the finest flower of the anti-religious Enlightenment, and that we therefore ought to stamp out all public manifestations of … [Read More]

In his homily at his inaugural Mass as Pope, Benedict XVI asked Catholics to “Pray for me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves.”  The media firestorm over Benedict’s decision to lift the excommunication of the four bishops consecrated without papal approval in 1988 by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre provides a perfect illustration of how modern wolves … [Read More]

If I had to live in the Middle East, I would want to live in Israel, a modern, democratic country with a productive economy, including a burgeoning high-tech sector, and a rich cultural and intellectual life.  There is much to admire in Israel, a dynamic and prosperous nation created in part by survivors of the Holocaust. If I were an Israeli, … [Read More]

When my wife suggested that we go see Doubt, John Patrick Shanley’s film adaptation of his Tony-award winning play, I was skeptical. I never saw the play, but I knew that it was about a priest suspected by a nun of molesting a teenage boy at the parochial school she ran, and I didn’t want to waste two hours on the … [Read More]

When I was young, there was much talk of “the Christmas spirit,” and I’ve always been fortunate enough to begin experiencing the joy appropriate for this time of year sometime before the big day.  This year, that happened this past Sunday.  Going to church in the morning helped put me in the mood, as I knew that the next hymn I … [Read More]

Back in the 1950s, when Americans knew from recent experience just how important it was to have a dominant manufacturing sector, Ike’s Defense Secretary, “Engine Charlie” Wilson, formerly of General Motors, famously declared, “What’s good for America is good for General Motors, and what’s good for General Motors is good for America.”  Charlie Wilson, whose former company had turned out the … [Read More]

A lot of cyber-ink has been spilled over a post by Ross Douthat arguing that grassroots populists need elites.  At one level, of course, Douthat is perfectly correct:  every political movement needs a leadership class.  But when he suggests that, to be successful, a figure like Sarah Palin needs someone like David Brooks, Douthat is wrong.  The reason right-wing populism has … [Read More]

It has long been known that the Nobel Prizes in Peace and Literature are sometimes awarded to questionable characters such as Le Duc Tho, Yasser Arafat, and Dario Fo.  But even Nobel laureates in the hard sciences can make stupid pronouncements when they step outside their disciplines, as Chemistry laureate Harry Kroto recently proved in a broadside against religion published in … [Read More]

Every so often, someone in the Bush Administration actually makes a sensible point, though often not in the manner they intend.  Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, before jetting off to the Caucasus (an area that makes the Balkans look friendly), stated that the Administration’s “message is that Russia has perhaps not accepted that it is time to move on from the … [Read More]

The latest validation of James Burnham’s insight that “liberalism is the ideology of Western suicide” comes from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.  As the Daily Mail reported recently, Dr. Williams wrote an irenic letter to Moslem leaders in which he wrote that the doctrine of the Trinity “is difficult, sometimes offensive” to Moslems and in which he also apologized for … [Read More]