Green Eggs and Ambo

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 3:02 pm By Max Lindenman

In the film adaptation of Herman Wouk’s World War Two novel, The Caine Mutiny, there’s a scene where three officers of a high-functioning but very messy minesweeper report aboard Admiral Halsey’s flagship. Their mission is to denounce their Captain Queeg as an incompetent paranoiac. But as soon as they reach the admiral’s hatch, the theme music swells up, diverting their attention to the flight deck, where a couple of hundred bluejackets form perfect ranks and snap to attention. “This isn’t... Read more

Next Stop: Trent?

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 3:02 pm By Max Lindenman

This Sunday, I’m attending a Latin Mass. There, it’s decided. I could hardly call myself a flâneur of Catholic culture otherwise. Never having taken a knee at the Porziuncola or the Holy Sepulchre, never having set so much as a single toe on the Camino — all these omissions, I think, are forgivable, given budgetary constraints. But never having heard a single Latin Mass when it’s offered in my own diocese is just plain laziness. I’ve always been a bit... Read more

Praying for Jennifer Fulwiler and Breaking the Gadget

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 3:02 pm By Max Lindenman

Readers: When I wrote this piece, all the news I’d received on Jennifer Fulwiler’s condition had been encouraging. For that reason, I gave myself leave to take a detour from the ongoing drama of her illness to broader questions of how social media affect the way people interact. However, since then, I’ve learned she’s taken a turn for the worse. How much worse I can’t say. What is clear is that an angle that seemed appropriate a few minutes ago,... Read more

Melampus, the Nativity Basset Hound: Finale

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 3:02 pm By Max Lindenman

With the death-smell filling his nostrils, and Acantha’s heartsick whine still filling his ears, Melampus found it urgent to distract himself. Now that the strange aroma had withdrawn to the very limits of his tracking powers, he discovered he was able, for the first time, to puzzle over its source. Oils, incense, and milk: do the sum. A nursing human mother with refined tastes. Melampus remembered the new star his old master and his advisors had put so much stock... Read more

Melampus, the Nativity Basset Hound: Part Two (of Three)

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 3:02 pm By Max Lindenman

“Slow and steady wins the race,” Aesop wrote. So often had Melampus heard the words quoted in reference to himself that he’d adopted them as his personal motto. In the first weeks of his journey, he seemed, once again, to be proving the wisdom behind them. The delightful bouquet beckoned due south; after a night of stumbling down private roads of varying qualities, Melampus found himself on a vast via publica aimed in that very direction. He avoided the gravel... Read more

Melampus, the Nativity Basset Hound: Part One

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 3:02 pm By Max Lindenman

Historians trace the basset hound back to the pack raised by St. Hubert of Liège, who was an avid huntsman. But even forefathers have forefathers. If you’re willing to put your trust in folklore, then the breed’s remotest ancestor — what Wotan was to the Germanic tribes and Oghuz Khan to the Turks — was a dog named Melampus who lived on an estate some distance outside the city of Antioch more than six centuries before the pious Frank or... Read more

The Hidden Drama of Prayer

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 3:02 pm By Max Lindenman

Yoking modern technology and oogedy-boogedy devotional practice, the website for the santuario in Nettuno, Italy, invites visitors to e-mail requests for intercession addressed to St. Maria Goretti. Every day, whoever’s in charge prints out the requests and stacks them in a corner of the urn where the saint’s wax-covered bones are on display. Whether the papers are then placed in the shredder and sold as third-class relics I can’t say, but I’d have no objection if they were — santuari... Read more

A Plea for Responsible Gun Non-Ownership

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 3:02 pm By Max Lindenman

“We can’t tolerate this anymore” has got to rank among the scariest expressions in the English language. As President Obama made this promise to the nation, he pledged to support a reinstatement of the assault-weapon ban. White House press secretary Jay Carney has said there are “other elements” of gun legislation, including a ban on high-capacity ammunition clips, Obama would consider. None of this sounds terribly sweeping, but Adam Lanza’s late 27-person killing spree has gun-control advocates shooting — so... Read more

Can A Mass Murder Mean A Church-World Truce?

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 3:02 pm By Max Lindenman

Only something unthinkably bad could make Slate and National Catholic Register cover the same story in the same tone, featuring the very same image. It may be time to start thinking, ’cause that thing has happened. Now that a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School has claimed 27 lives, 20 of them belonging to children, media of all persuasions are touting St. Rose of Lima church as an oasis of sanity and hope. On December 14, only a few... Read more

Murder, We Posted

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 3:02 pm By Max Lindenman

I was out when news of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School first hit the online media. When I got home, I made some effort to catch up, but quit after about 20 minutes. It just seemed pointless. There’s a depressing sameness to these shootings. The shooter’s almost always a boy in his teens or a man in his 20s with a history of psychological disturbance. Sometimes he turns out to have kept a diary or written a... Read more