It was 1951 and she was much too young to be so sick. Much too young. And she had her suspicions about what it was. The fevers. The drenching sweats. The profound fatigue and the joint pains – oh, the joint pains. She had her suspicions. After all, Flannery O’Connor had seen her father endure something like it before her…and he died one month into his forty-fifth year. Years later when she fully grasped that she too had the mysterious... Read more
“We must always tell what we see. Above all, and this is more difficult, we must always see what we see.” -Charles Peguy Help me understand something. The virulent Ebola virus which once seemed forever vicious, yet aloof in the heart of Africa, is now here in America. On a federal, state and local level, government, public health and medical authorities are grappling with what we know and what we don’t know about managing this virus’ impact on a... Read more
We crowded into a small room at my internal medicine clinic and looked at each other. Some decisions had to be made. Soon. We were charged to answer one fundamental question: What would we do if a patient suspected of having Ebola were to walk in our clinic door? As simple as it may seem, this is an incredibly complex question. It requires considering the well-being of the patient, the risk to other patients exposed to him (or her, but I will use him for simplification)... Read more
“The Four Men is the greatest of books.” – Fr. James Schall “Read anything of Belloc you can find, I doubt if it makes any difference what order.” – Fr. James Schall One of the greatest and most prolific Jesuit thinkers today is Fr. James Schall. And as a retired Georgetown professor,author of over thirty books and hundreds of essays, he is quite gifted at his craft. Moreover, he is also an extraordinary guide. Anyone who has not purchased, read... Read more
Recently, on my Instagram account (catholic thinker), I posted a quote by George Orwell that went something like this, “There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.” The quote seemed apropos for an issue of the day and it generated an expected number of “likes” before one honest (and earnest) Catholic observer noted, “Strange to see such an anti-Catholic writer being quoted here.” This didn’t seem to be a snarky comment so common to the subterranean trollers... Read more
Editors’ Note: This article is part of the Patheos Public Square on Remembering the Dead: Ancestors, Rituals, Relics. Read other perspectives here. “Everything is going to be okay.” These are the six words she said. And I believed her. Sharon Barrett has said this to me more than once since her husband (and my patient and friend), Dick, passed away last winter. “Everything is going to be okay.” Perhaps these simple but confident words best epitomize the Catholic view of... Read more
Recently, thanks to Elizabeth Scalia’s piece on Winston Churchill, I got to thinking. Leadership really matters. Seventy five years ago, on September 1st, the most destructive war in human history began. And it began with a strategy called “Lightning War”. The German Army under the rabid leadership of Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist state raced into and crushed the valiant, but overwhelmed Polish Army in a matter of weeks. Poland, trapped between the two unparalleled despotisms of National Socialism... Read more
“The trouble about the world today is that there’s not enough religion in it. There’s nothing to stop young people doing whatever they feel like doing at the moment.” – Evelyn Waugh It was an unexpected comment, to be sure. After all, it came from the vogue British novelist who penned the wildly popular satires Decline and Fall and Vile Bodies. But perhaps the occasion on which he chose to say this would excuse that which he said. He was announcing his divorce... Read more
“It is better to light a candle to than to curse the darkness.” – Anonymous “C’mon. Give it to me. Just one more time.”, he chided. “Not again,” I came back. “Just go on. Give me the list. Is it ten? Fifteen? More?” And then, with my level-best self-deprecation, I would begin to count. And list. My friend knew that things had not changed. In fact, he reveled in it. I was a news junkie. And it was out of... Read more
It happened one night years ago at the local Lutheran church. I should have seen it coming. After all, it’s the kind of thing I had been around for years. But this is the first time I really noticed it. And it bothered me. My wife and I were taking an Alpha Course over the course of roughly ten weeks. The thrust of the course was to foster small group discussion on the tenets of the Christian faith following an ostensibly ecumenical... Read more
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