Yesterday evening I delivered the Newman Lecture at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences in Arlington, VA. The following is an excerpt adapted from those remarks. Have you ever tried to pray for an hour or more, or even gone for a weekend of silence and prayer on a retreat, and found your mind buzzing with distractions, and your heart barren and dry? Do you then have the disquieting sense that no one is there – neither to listen... Read more
In the United States today, an immense amount of research shows that the greatest of all inequalities faced by Americans lies in the marital structure of the home in which they grow up. Robert Fogel may have been the first one to notice it, but recent studies by Charles Murray, Brad Wilcox, Mary Eberstadt, and Mitch Pearlstein, among others, overwhelm older complacencies. Professor Catherine Pakaluk conveniently summarizes Fogel’s point: “In The Fourth Great Awakening, Fogel argues that the greatest disparity... Read more
Pope Francis seems to be a subject of unending fascination. Some of my intellectual evangelical friends are saying that Francis may be the most Christlike man since Jesus. Most of my Catholic intellectual friends (two-thirds of them Pope John Paul II Catholics) love his common touch, and see a strong, farsighted intellect underneath his folksiness. My colleague at Ave Maria University, Economics and Family Professor Catherine Pakaluk, has seen that Francis may have the clearest insight of any recent pope... Read more
I’ve just returned from a wonderful visit at Walsh University in North Canton, OH, where I spoke at the 40th Annual Philosophy/Theology Symposium. In gratitude to my hosts, I would like to post another excerpt adapted from my remarks there. Before I do that, however, let me highlight briefly the thoughtful reception of the concurrent solo exhibition of artwork by my late wife, Karen Laub-Novak. This on the heels of a feature-length article about Karen’s life and work by art... Read more
Seventy-one percent of Americans told pollsters two things last week: first, that the middle class in this country is paying far too heavy a load of all income taxes. This first point is dead on. The IRS reports that the top 50 percent of income earners paid over 97 percent of all income taxes. A pretty hefty burden, indeed. That there are many who need help is partly understandable. Think of the scores of millions of elderly, disabled, young unmarried... Read more
Our tradition likes to say, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Here’s how I interpret that. A human subject is a very complex creature. To answer the question “who am I?” is, in a way, to sketch out your own “horizon,” that is to say, all that your consciousness has experienced, understood, and judged to be real about the whole range of its experiences. For example, if you spend a semester in Europe (Italy, say), that journey is... Read more
In celebration of the publication of the new biography of Father Richard John Neuhaus by Randy Boyagoda (Image, 2015). As one who worked intimately with Richard Neuhaus since 1965, I want to say how thrilling it is to read this new volume. These lines are based on “Lepanto” by the inimitable, incomparable G. K. Chesterton, and were originally delivered to honor Father Neuhaus when he received the Youth for the Third Millennium Award in 1999. * * * Dim drums... Read more
Picking up again, we recall Emily’s question about the seemingly different messages of the two Testaments: EMILY: . . . Where God was once fire and brimstone and eternal damnation, Jesus is water into wine, and healing and forgiveness. GRANDPA: Regarding the Christian Testament, I think casual modern readers of the stories of Christ come up with a much too sweet picture of him as the paragon of “niceness.” That is not the way He suffered and died. Moreover,... Read more
The U.S. made huge mistakes after launching troops into Iraq in 2003. But the hugest mistake of all was getting out prematurely and immorally in 2011. I am not interested in adjudicating the question of who is to blame for the pull-out. Bush, Obama, and the Iraqis themselves may all share responsibility. But that is beside the point I want to make. At the time when we recklessly pulled out the defensive force of 50,000 that U.S. commanders determined to... Read more
More than once in the last couple of years others have continued criticism and even insisted that I apologize for being in favor of the Iraq War in 2003. There are very strong moral reasons why the United States went into Iraq in 2003, and why it was strategically sound to do so (despite the wise caveats of many experienced leaders, most notably Pope John Paul II). Because the pope had publicly described me as one of his half dozen... Read more
Coming down to Earth
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