The letter opened on an ominous note. “Dear Max,” wrote the manager. “I wanted to let you know the result of your interview.” Without further ado, she let fall the axe: “We met another candidate that we feel is the fit that we are looking for, so we are going to proceed in that direction.” Then her tone turned conciliatory, even sweet. “We all really appreciated you and your thoughtful answers and your obvious talent and interest in our company,”... Read more
In the first few psalms, God comes across like a rogue cop in a James Ellroy novel. After clearing his Son to break the nations with a rod of iron, He claims His own piece of the action by breaking the teeth of the ungodly. All the while He’s sitting in the heavens and laughing in derision. True, the narrator doesn’t specifically mention His popping a fistful of Benzedrine or grinding up anyone’s hand in a garbage disposal, but that’s... Read more
Following the Arizona Cardinals can feel like an endless meditation on the vanity of human desire. Still, it amazes me that Super Bowl XLIII, where Pittsburgh snatched the cup from our hands in the game’s final minute, had the roundabout effect of screwing me tighter into my faith. The Paraclete’s proxy in this case was a friend of mine, a woman predictably named Mary. Mary is a very good and faithful Catholic, which is to say she can turn any... Read more
If you grew up in an average occidental family, chances are excellent that at some point in your childhood, one of your parents threw open the door and screamed, “I’ve had it up to here with you kids! I’m leaving! You all can eat roots and berries or each other or the stinking dog for all I care! Oh, you won’t miss me — not as long as the TV’s still working! The next time you start wondering what’s become... Read more
I am stalking George Weigel. His trail is very warm, let me add. The lion of the Catholic Right, the latter-day sage of Baltimore, former intimate of Blessed Pope John Paul II and author of A Witness to Hope, is standing big as life at the end of my pew in Phoenix’s Church of St. Thomas the Apostle. With the light from the chandeliers dancing a mazurka in his tortoiseshells, he looks just like he looks on In the Arena,... Read more
One afternoon in June, the student body of my primary school trooped out to the section of Central Park facing Mt. Sinai Hospital to watch the faculty play the eighth-graders in softball, an annual tradition. Around the third inning, a very tall, very thin African-American man wandered onto the infield. In a sequence of events that transpired too quickly for me to reproduce with complete confidence, the man began shouting at the shortstop, a girl named Kimberly, and slapped her... Read more
In the summer of 1945, following a three-week trial, a jury convicted Maréchal Philippe Pétain of treason and sentenced him to death. The verdict excited controversy. Though, in four years as France’s chief of state, he had created a generally repressive regime and collaborated with Hitler, there was plenty to be said in Pétain’s favor. During the First World War, he had led French forces in resisting the Germans at Verdun. In the war that followed, he justified seeking peace... Read more
I’m probably attacking a straw man — or at best a stick man — but lately I’ve been hearing rumors that certain Catholics are growing suspicious of us converts. Instead of breathing new life into the Church, their reasoning goes, all we do is sow confusion and take blogging jobs away from good, honest cradle Catholics. Unless someone redraws the districts in time for the next papal election, we’ll end up voting in socialized medicine and gun control. I have... Read more
My house smells like tomcat. I don’t mean tomcat spray. Rusty, the stray orange tabby who began using my place as a flophouse last summer, pulled that trick exactly twice. Both times, thank God, he chose to mark the imitation hardwood floors of my kitchenette, and not the champagne-carpeted floors of my bedroom. No steam cleaning was required; a few hours of scrubbing and bleaching, along with a few days of smoking, sufficed to banish that bouquet for good. No,... Read more
I don’t have my copy of Norman Mailer’s Armies of the Night on my lap. A few years ago, I loaned it to someone who took it with her when she drifted out of my life. But among the sections that have stuck in my head, more or less intact, is one where Mailer digresses from recounting his speech to assembled antiwar protestors, to a general defense of vulgarity. If I’m reconstructing this right, he flashes back to one of... Read more
Diary of a Wimpy Catholic
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