June 21, 2019 (1,544 words)
One good thing (among many) about belonging to a universal church is the way it naturally and organically responds to every local culture known to man. Another good thing is how it has encountered every human condition down through the centuries, and developed the teaching to address…

June 20, 2019 (940 words)
We all know that welfare doesn’t work, and we all know why. Government hand-outs create a feeling of entitlement, and encourage a culture of dependency. The recipients fail to take ownership of what they are given, and feel no responsibility for their…

June 19, 2019 (2,521 words)
Part One
The economic discussion has gone stale. It has fallen into a bit of a rut. And the average successful American doesn’t generally give the subject much thought, beyond a perfunctory checking…

June 18, 2019 (429 words)
The phrase “true grit” has iconic overtones. To movie audiences of a certain age, the term may conjure images of an older John Wayne, circa 1969, in the role of Rooster Cogburn, a crusty, broken-down…

June 15, 2019 (436 words)
Wendell Berry is now 84 years old. The poet, novelist, essayist and gentleman farmer is a well-known dissenter from nearly every aspect of modern life. He was born, raised, and still lives in Kentucky, maintains a healthy distance from any major metropolis, and does all his writing in longhand, with…

June 12, 2019 (134 words)
Can you be considered a musician without actually being able to play an instrument? Random sounds and bits of conversation have always elicited a musical response from me…

June 9, 2019 (495 words)
You may be familiar with the popular catch-phrase “you had me at hello,” a line uttered by the female lead of a successful “summer movie” from some twenty years ago. It was part of clever script that combined…

June 5, 2019 (1,002 words)
While there are certainly historical antecedents for both the sexual revolution and women’s liberation, the post-WWII boom of the late 1950s into the 1960s saw these movements really hit their stride and go…

May 23, 2019 (24 words)
It seems the most important realizations we experience in life are beyond the power of words to express. But it’s still fun to try…

May 19, 2019 (1,017 words)
Whenever David Brooks riffs on our wayward culture in the op-ed section of The New York Times I am always at full attention. (His political commentary, offered on television as a guest panelist for various cable news outlets, is less captivating from my perspective.)…

April 30, 2019 (883 words)
My passport recently reached its ten-year expiration date, and being the world traveler that I am it was absolutely imperative to have it renewed immediately. So last week I sauntered into the local post

April 13, 2019 (1,855 words)
The other day I was startled by a front page story in The New York Times that announced the U.S. border could be at a breaking point. Then driving home from work yesterday I listened to National Public Radio…

March 24, 2019 (76 words)
Democracy allows us to have an opinion about everything, without necessarily giving much thought to anything in advance. No need to investigate or educate ourselves on…

March 19, 2019 (3,431 words)
When the book Why Liberalism Failed by Notre Dame associate professor of political science Patrick J. Deneen was published by Yale University Press in January 2018, it was immediately reviewed in all…

March 11, 2019 (2,212 words)
Many a member of my once-dominant post-WW II “baby boom” generation (b. 1946-1964) began life with decidedly liberal tendencies. But we were mugged…

March 1, 2019 (1,103 words)
Nobody likes to pay taxes. Very few of us ever call our friendly neighborhood accountant and say, “You know, Larry, this year let’s make sure I hand over my fair share.” This inbred aversion to taxation…

February 24, 2019 (692 words)
I live and work in a well-off suburb that is a Republican stronghold, with “Democrats Need Not Apply” signs posted prominently at most every polling place come election season…

February 20, 2019 (914 words)
Amazon is no longer going to locate a new $2.5 billion HQ facility in Long Island City, Queens (NYC). The prickly press release was made public last Thursday morning – Valentine’s Day…

February 14, 2019 (928 words)
On any given day of the week, you can stroll into a bar or diner of your choice and be treated to a variation of the following exchange, being bandied about over a cup of coffee or a glass of beer. The bleeding heart …

February 12, 2019 (355 words)
Despite my recently noted reservations about the methodology used for his economic prognosticating, there is an initiative American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks is currently promoting…

February 9, 2019 (1,367 words)
Arthur Brooks and Andrew Cuomo are the same type of Catholics. This may come as a surprise to most readers, since each man operates from opposite ends of the political spectrum. But then…

February 7, 2019 (45 words)
Our only daughter is getting her own place and moving out. She is a treasure, and now it’s time for us…

February 3, 2019 (1,264 words)
As president of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) since January 2009, Arthur Brooks has spent the last ten years working with political, intellectual, and business leaders in Washington, D.C. and…

February 2, 2019 (444 words)
Somehow I missed the March 2018 announcement that Arthur Brooks will be stepping down in June 2019 as president of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative think tank…

January 26, 2019 (499 words)
I happen to be a big fan of any sort of live music. It can be a jazz trio, a symphony orchestra, or a high school marching band. There is something about people making beautiful…

January 23, 2019 (418 words)
This Christmas I received a book as a present from one of my considerate children, who shall remain nameless. (But she knows who she is.) I have started reading this book from the beginning, which…

January 21, 2019 (543 words)
We all have our preferred sources of news and information that contribute to our comfortable routines. In the January 11 edition…

January 17, 2019 (31 words)
Once we are finally finished with acquisition, our thoughts turn naturally toward absolution. Of everyone…

January 6, 2019 (640 words)
(The following is reprinted from the Letters section of the December 2018 issue of Culture Wars magazine, as contributed by Lise Anglin of Toronto, Ontario.)…

January 1, 2019 (343 words)
The term “Church Fathers,” or “Early Church Fathers,” or “Fathers of the Church,” describes those men of the first two generations after the Apostles of Christ, and for that reason are often referred to as…

December 28, 2018 (808 words)
Let’s review the facts of the case: Separation of church and state is the best thing that ever happened to us. It allowed early American colonists to leave the religious strife of Reformation…

December 25, 2018 (167 words)
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwell in the land of gloom a light has shone. You have brought them …

December 21, 2018 (1,004 words)
Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime. While this is undeniably true, it’s still a lot easier to just hand over a cod filet and leave it at that, since teaching…

December 16, 2018 (1,248 words)
Our youngest is a senior in high school this year. He is studying the War of 1812 in History, and writing about it in English. The other night we both found ourselves standing in the kitchen, waiting…

December 3, 2018 (1,168 words)
I seem to be out of step with just about everything these days. The most recent trend to have passed me by is “Catholic Outrage.” Any serious practitioner that…

December 1, 2018 (55 words)
Toward the end of his life my father developed a pithy, two-word answer to the question that continues to vex us. How did the culture go…

November 26, 2018 (48 words)
Where once I dreamt of women, now I dream of words. Without wanting to offend half the population, my current pre-occupation is proving to be a much more productive…

November 23, 2018 (47 words)
We are all a tribute to our parents. Who in turn are, of course, a tribute to their parents. Who then are a tribute to – oh, well, you get the picture…

November 21, 2018 (1,912 words)
Here in the well-off suburbs where I reside, the worshippers I tend to rub elbows with on the weekend exude a quiet pride in their circumstances. They are proud of where they…

November 17, 2018 (355 words)
In the beginning, the overbearing and hyper-critical way you relate to your small staff is justified by the fear of failure. The sense of dread that comes from …