Regular Contributions
“Can’t We Just Take the Money and Do Our Own Thing?” Why you can’t out-fox Common Core
“Look,” the bright, young superintendent of schools insists, “I understand that are all sorts of horror stories floating around out there about terrible Common Core curriculum but that isn’t the curriculum we’re going to use.” She began her job this past August and has enormous enthusiasm for what can be done to improve the academic…
Getting Testy about Testing
You know, it wasn’t that long ago that Johnny – and Juan – could read. They could recite the multiplication table, too, and could quickly make change, tally a ledger, and calculate simple percentages. Their teachers didn’t teach to a test; they taught basic, academic content. Johnny’s score on standardized tests – and Juan’s –measured…
She Who Directs Our Gaze to the Heavens
In one of his last works, the baroque painter Pietro Bianichi (1694-1740) executed an image of Our Blessed Lady’s Immaculate Conception. The painting sits in the Roman basilica of Santa Maria deli Angeli, a church renowned for its famous meridian line (constructed at the behest of Pope Clement XI by Francesco Bianchini)–a feat of scientific excellence. Within a decade of its…
The Rise of the Machines (and the Fall of Man)
A little over sixty years ago, J.R.R. Tolkien defined what he meant by a machine: By the [ word “machine”] I intend all use of external plans or devices (apparatus) instead of development of the inherent inner powers or talents — or even the use of these talents with the corrupted motive of dominating: bulldozing the real world,…
The Strength of His Arm
Every time I’ve been to Rome, I’ve always made a point to visit the Church of the Gesu. Perhaps the best example of baroque art and architecture in the world, it is a monument to a triumphant Church confident in the truths of the Creed and in the Kingship of her Lord. It appeals to the senses…
How Anglicans (and Some Catholic Bishops) Think?
A brief news item today heralded the apocalyptic musings of the former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey. According to a FOX News Report, the former Anglican Archbishop, then second only to the Queen as Head of the Church of England, commented: “Christianity is just a ‘generation away from extinction’ in Britain unless churches have a breakthrough in…
Port and Cookies
I have long wanted to compile a collection of anecdotes by graduates of Catholic colleges and universities from (roughly) 1967-2000 as to how they survived the reigning agnostic materialism on campus. To what underground bunkers did they flee? Between which dusty old stacks in the university library did they repair? To which neighborhood bar–away from the…
Confusions about Social Justice
The phrase “social justice” is relatively new, appearing first with frequency in the writing of Pius XI, most notably in Quadragesimo Anno (1931). Despite its more frequent use among contemporary Catholics, social justice is now widely confused with its kindred virtues, “commutative justice” and “distributive justice” The failure to distinguish these virtues leads to basic…
Bishop Paprocki is Stealing their happiness? !
You’ve seen the headlines by now: Bishop Paprocki of Springfield diocese is going to perform an exorcism at the same time as the Governor Pat Quinn of Illinois signs a bill into law that enacts so-call marriages between persons of the same sex (as if that were possible anywhere in God’s creation). The story is…
Hanukah: Prequel to the Gospels
Ever wonder why Catholics insist on keeping the books of the Maccabees in her bibles while everyone else keeps throwing them out? It’s a pretty wild story, one far better than George Lucas could cook up! Never look at hanukkah the same after this muse by Major Frey.