A Historical Change in Guidance Systems
Published on The Catholic Thing October 8, 2008
Some social democrats and socialists, especially in Western Europe, view the current financial crisis in America with a certain gladness. They think this may discredit “democratic capitalism,” and confirm the superiority of social democracy.
This stance returns our public conversation to the questions of the 1972 electoral campaign, during which a significant number of left-wing American thinkers and activists began to rebel against statist institutions, habits, and ways of looking at things propounded by the New Left, and the many promoters of the large omnivorous state. Read More...
John Derbyshire Threw Down the Glove (Part II)
Published on National Review Online September 25, 2008
John Derbyshire does not trust the word of Mary the Mother of Jesus, nor the word of Luke the Evangelist. It was to Luke that Mary told the story of the Annunciation of the birth of Jesus. What she described is not according to the ordinary rules of nature; neither she nor anyone else thought so. That is the point, isn’t it? The birth of Jesus is beyond human powers. It is not contrary to the rules of nature, since its origins lie in nature’s God, adapting Himself to nature’s laws. But it is a singular event. Read More...
John Derbyshire Threw Down the Glove (Part I)
Published on National Review Online September 24, 2008
John Derbyshire asks for evidence that Jesus Christ was born of the “overshadowing Holy Spirit” and a virgin, as the Christian creed affirms. Not exactly the kind of evidence that Mr. Derbyshire likes best. But evidence is of many types. Read More...
Judging the First Debate
Senator Obama helped himself last night by doing better than expected. Senator McCain did very well, but everybody expected that. In that sense, in terms of expectations, Obama won the debate by a small margin. Which is very good for his campaign.
That, at least, is how I judged what the public perception would be, and the short-term political result.
My own personal judgment was different. Read More...
God as Beneficient Father? A reply to Heather Mac Donald
Published on The Catholic Thing September 23, 2008
During our hour-long Templeton Conversation at the Harvard Club (September 17), Heather kept coming back to this question: “What is the evidence for your statement that God is a loving, beneficent father?” I do not think I answered her well, so let me try again. Read more...
Dinesh D'Souza Reviews No One Sees God
Published on www.tothesource.org September 9, 2008
Through A Glass Darkly
For a couple of years it seemed like the new atheists were going largely unanswered. But now there are several good books rebutting their claims, among them John Lennox's God's Undertaker and Tim Keller's The Reason for God. The latest addition to this literature is Michael Novak's new book No One Sees God. It is a wise and important book. Read more...
Defining Marriage Down
Published in Liberal, September 10, 2008
A question laid down by one of the most prominent television commentators in America (Bill O’Reilly) has been nagging at me for a couple of weeks: What is wrong with gay marriage? The people Mr. O’Reilly has had on the air did not persuade Mr. O’Reilly—and probably not many others, either. They did not offer reasons. Read More...
Sarah! A New Star is Born
Published in Liberal September 7, 2008
I don’t know if the word has reached Europe yet, but Americans have been in a swoon about the authentic voice of most of America, whose favorite sport is hunting, shooting, and dressing moose and caribou in the Alaska wilds. She is a woman of the American West. She is confident and fearless. And she is so down to earth she seems like someone out of your own parents’ home. This is the kind of woman we all grew up with, the kind that have been the strength of America since the West was opened in the 1850’s. Read more...
Who is Governor Palin?
Published in Liberal, September 2, 2008
A Christian (non-denominational Protestant) and mother of five, Governor of Alaska, Commander of the Alaska National Guard, political reformer who has shaken the “old boy network” of corrupt government in Alaska, long ago a star of her secondary school State Championship basketball team, ardent fisherman and hunter, a long-time manual worker and co-president of a small family business, toughminded and no-nonsense campaigner, Sarah Palin’s nickname in basketball was “Barracuda.” Do not sell her short. Read More...
Four Great Gifts Italy Has Given America
Published in The Catholic Thing, August 26, 2008
Now that another several hundred thousand Americans have come back from spending part of their summer in Italy, they may be in a special mood to reflect on what we owe to the great Italian cities: four contributions in particular - a sense of civic beauty; bold and creative individuals; the Stoic ethic of ancient and medieval Rome; and the crucial social role of civic and religious associations. Read More...
Cousin Bob
Published in National Review Online, August 16, 2008
Often enough, we used to get each other's mail. Once on an airplane, I overheard two nuns behind me talking about what a scowl Michael Novak wore on Crossfire every week — he must be a very angry man. I felt like turning around and saying: "Sorry, you mean Robert Novak. I'm Michael Novak. We call each other cousins. Just to pull your leg, he calls himself the Prince of Darkness. In the Hebrew translation, I am the Angel of Light." But of course I didn't turn around, and I didn't say anything. I was honored.
We aren't really cousins, Bob and I. Brothers is more like it. But not brothers in the flesh, rather, in affections. I have always loved the guy, especially when he is playing the bad Robert. He sometimes affects being cynical. That was, I have always thought, a protection against his own deep love for this country, and for the honorable profession of politics. He is a stern moralist, not a cynic. He was not taught by nuns, but somewhere he mastered the art of the slap across the wrist in disapproval. He works so darn hard. He was until his illness always on the go — and more often than always (if that is possible), on the telephone. Tirelessly on the telephone. No reporter in our time works harder. Read more...
Catholics for Obama?
Published in National Review Online, August 8, 2008
"Not long before he was elected pope (overwhelmingly), Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger sent a public rebuke to the U.S. bishops. He reminded them that the question of abortion must be judged in a far different category from war and capital punishment. War is a question of practical wisdom, he observed, about which prudent Catholics may form opposing practical judgments. Same with capital punishment, which for centuries was rated by the church as just and sometimes necessary. By contrast abortion, Ratzinger wrote, is “intrinsically evil” and “always and everywhere” to be opposed...
"Despite the fact that Cardinal Ratzinger, not to mention John Paul II, forcefully reminded Catholics of their duty not to cooperate with the evil of abortion, many Catholic leftists continue to cite the same American bishops who were rebuked by the cardinal and the pope. Why, moreover, do these leftists argue from “the consistent ethic of life”? Under the flag of “consistency” they are able to put virtually every issue dear to them on the scales. The result is to downgrade the real, distinctive, sui generis evil of abortions, which are now performed at a rate of about 1.1 million a year. They put equal emphasis on capital punishment and the “unjust war in Iraq” — the very thing Cardinal Ratzinger said they cannot in good conscience do." Read more...
The Flag on the Lapel, Continued
Published in "The Corner" at National Review Online on August 1, 2008
In reply to my post on The Corner Wednesday, several interesting emails arrived. Here are two of my favorites, which I think readers may also enjoy.
The first one understands the contrast between the sweet liberal vision and the reality-based vision of earth and land and historical struggle and ambiguity and evil:
Gone with the Wind begins with Scarlett’s father foreshadowing the end of the story...
Gerald O'Hara: “It will come to you, this love of the land.”
What did Scarlett say at the end of the book? After Rhett left her? After being ravaged by the war?
Scarlett: “Tara! Home. I'll go home.”
There is a reason that a story lives forever....because it touches our hearts.
The second email proposes an admirable list of everything that can be done for our heroes in Iraq — everything except the one important thing. The writer does not recognize the justice of their cause and the great victory they are in the process of winning. Denied these, they are denied everything noble and moral. The inherent aim of soldiering, Aristotle writes, is victory.
…We Liberals live in the real world...not a world of symbolism. Wearing a flag pin since September 11, 2001 does absolutely nothing for the troops in harm's way. Not one of our soldiers, seaman, or Marines can see your flag pin or your "Support Our Troops" bumper sticker. [Except during the long periods when they are at home.] If you truly want to send a message of support to the troops, send a donation to "Operation Helmet," sign up to send care packages, make sure our troops are supported when they come home with injuries or PTSD. And, finally, do everything possible to get them out of harm's way as soon as possible.
Most of these are very generous recommendations. Whether soldiers in the field judge that liberals “live in the real world” is a question worth pondering.
The Flag in the Lapel
Published in "The Corner" at National Review Online on July 30, 2008
"Now we know why Obama took the American flag off his lapel. On July 24, in Berlin, he told us. The American flag is too small to contain him. He is not comfortable being an American citizen, only fully comfortable as a citizen of the world. But “citizen of the world” is a utopian, unreal, angelic, inhuman term, an abstraction of the sort that leads to immense bloodshed as human irregularities are hacked off and angularity is loudly planed away." Read more...
The Shocking Turnaround on Humanae Vitae
Published at The Catholic Thing on July 29, 2008
"I doubt if more laughter has been expended on any point of Catholic teaching than on Pope Paul VI’s letter Humanae Vitae of late July 1968, exactly forty years ago. The much-mocked Pope Paul predicted that “artificial methods” of birth control would end up being personally corrupting and socially destructive. But suddenly something right before our eyes began to be noticed. Mirabile dictu! A host of empirical findings has confirmed the predictions of Pope Paul VI." Read more...
Reconciling Evil with Faith
Published in USA Today on July 21, 2008.
"Rebellion against a suffering world and the God whose great work of art it is is very common. When very sorely tried, many Jews and Christians such as the Psalmist (who again and again lamented the long exile and humiliations endured by his people) and Job (whose faith God tested by adding one affliction after another) have also wanted to throw off God, but a counter-question kept nagging them: Would a conviction that our sufferings are meaningless, and due to blind chance, ease the pain of the poor and the unjustly tortured? Raging against the night seems to be an evasion of reality..." Read more...
A Secretary, a Speaker, and a Priest
Published at National Review Online on June 27, 2008.
Since the arrival of my first DVD in the mail, I have been a convert, one might say, to Netflix. My first request was for The Ninth Day, a German film set in Dachau and Luxembourg. The film must be described as one which takes one’s breath away, and keeps one deathly silent. I had read the short autobiography upon which the movie is based, Priestblock 25487: A Memoir of Dachau, and was put in some awe by it. What an amazing equanimity of spirit on the part of the author, Father Jean Bernard! Read more...
No One Sees God: An Interview
Published at FirstThings.Com on June 24, 2008.
"No one catches direct sight of God. Our knowledge about him comes from weighing our own experience of life—including our experience of the natural world, the experiences of conscience, such experiences as the inner drive within us to ask questions (even from the time we were children), the pleasure of acts of insight, and reflection upon what we really do when we make judgments that something is true or good or beautiful. What suppositions are we making about existence, even in the simple act of judging that something is true or good (or better) or real—not an illusion or a fantasy." Read more...
New Atheists, Old Realities
Published in "On Faith" at Newsweek.WashingtonPost.Com, June 20, 2008
"As far as I can see, the New Atheists have been slowly executing a strategic retreat. Many seem to admit that there is not now, and can never be, a knock-down proof for atheism. Thus, the line of defense they have more and more frequently retreated seems modest and open-minded. As their reply to the question, “Is there a God?” their new answer is perfect for a bumper sticker: “I don’t know, and you don’t know, either.”
This is a mistake. The New Agnostic holds that the burden of proof is not on him; the burden is on others to “prove” to him that there is an object “out there.” But the evidence about God is not to be sought “out there.” It does not reside among other classifiable, sensory objects in this universe. The question about God is essentially a question about one’s own personal identity." Read more...
Two Public Policy Proposals: Catholic Social Thought in Practice
Posted at "The Catholic Thing," June 17, 2008
"Here are two practical concepts for improving the welfare of all the citizens of a nation, especially the poor and the ill and the disabled. At least twenty nations have already adopted variations of these proposals, and they seem to be benefiting enormously thereby...
Neither of these two new policy ideas promises paradise on earth. But they do seem designed to strengthen both the common good and the sense of responsibility (and well-being) of the individual person. The person and the common good are the two main normative inspirations of Catholic Social Teaching." Read more...
The Adventure of Catholic Social Doctrine
Posted at "The Catholic Thing" on June 5, 2008
"Catholics know in their bones that history is strewn with ironies and tragedies, strange twists, monstrous actions by deranged individuals, the lassitude of the good, the collapse of the center, the rapidly spreading infection of destructive ideas. Even saintly leaders acting with good intentions have sometimes brought about ugly consequences they did not intend.
In other words, Catholic Social Doctrine is anything but cut and dried. It is a great field for young talent, full of energy and originality. It is also a hugely demanding discipline, because any practitioner (either on the theoretical or on the practical side) must learn an immense amount in the very short period of a human life." Read more...
Is Health Care a Right? Only in a Sense.
Posted on "The Corner" at National Review Online, May 16, 2008
Among the e-mails I received prompted by Barack Obama's America was this paragraph:
You also seem to ignore in healthcare what we need to do to insure that all our citizens have access to healthcare. Do you believe that healthcare is a right and that we as a people need to come up with a system [t]o insure that right? If you look at other countries, are there systems that deliver better healthcare to a higher percentage of people? If there are, shouldn't we try to change our system rather than insist that we follow an ideology that has not worked? I think that most Americans are pragmatist and will vote for change if they see that the current system does not work.
“The current system does not work,” compared to what?
In my brief piece, I kept in mind the experience of the Canadian health system and the British health service. The criticisms I listed of universal health care are based there.
I do believe that healthcare is a right, in the sense that free speech is a right; no one can take that right away from you. On the other hand, no one else has to build an auditorium for you, or publish a newspaper for you so that you can exercise your right to free speech. Treating health care as a right that others have the duty to supply for you has a great many ill effects. Universal health care sounds good as a dream, but in actual practice it has a great many deficiencies — besides there is always the danger that everybody will be mandated to have but one choice in medical care, supplied by the government.
REPORT TO LIBERAL, THE NEW DAILY NEWSPAPER IN ROME, ITALY:
The USA in 2012 Under President Obama
Published in Liberal, May 14, 2008
"One of the wisest American former officials I know asked me two nights ago: 'Michael, put on your thinking cap, and tell me where the United States will be four years from now, it Barack Obama is President.' I had been trying to avoid that question in my own mind. I have tried to tell myself the old proverb (told me by my father) 'God takes care of children, drunks and the United States of America.' I have tried to imagine that Obama will NOT be President...." Read more...
A Surprise for Pope Benedict!
Posted on "The Corner," National Review Online, April 16, 2008.
"300 yellow and white Vatican flags snap in the breeze along Pennsylvania Avenue in the hours before Benedict XVI arrived. When taken to his rooms at the Apostolic Nunciature on Massachusetts Avenue (just opposite the Vice President’s home) the pope should have discovered, hanging on the wall, a life size portrait of himself by the great Russian émigré painter, Igor Babailov. 
Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the Apostolic Nuncio, said in advance that the portrait catches the pope’s shyness, strength, and almost physical presence, in stirring colors of light gold against the dark. Best of all, the figure of the risen Christ towers above Pope Benedict, which is as it should be for one called to be the Vicar of Christ.
That the portrait was painted in the United States, and presented in the United States, is thoroughly fitting. It will mark the occasion of the pope’s visit for a great many generations into the future. In its style and presentation the portrait reaches back to the traditions of the great artists of the Renaissance. It does so by lovingly capturing the details of the human being, from the calm fire in the pope’s eyes to the realistic depiction of his fingers. Barely discernible in the background are Michelangelo’s dome of St. Peter’s, a slightly brighter sky around Benedict XVI’s coat of arms, and below that three burning candles honoring the Trinity and, reflected in their light, the pages of the Missal with all its readings from the Bible.
Babailov has rendered portraits of many famous personages from Pope John Paul II to Frederick Hart, the American sculptor, pianist Byron Janis, President George W. Bush, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, Former First Lady Hillary R. Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, and such athletes as Boomer Esiason and Tiki Barber. His work can be seen here."
Popes Must Speak Out for Peace
Posted on "The Corner" at National Review Online, April 14, 2008
"The role and munus (office, burden, duty) of the Presidents of nations are different. Presidents must make a probable judgment about the long-run implications both of inaction and action, and about what in the long run will have been the most creative path for them to have taken...The Pope is not primarily a political player, and yet the cultural and moral power of his words and actions may this week well have long political consequences. On the record, we are entitled to have confidence in Benedict's bravery, balance of mind, and concern to do his duty." Read more...