December 28, 2019

Homily: Family, Church, and the Survival of Human Society

He likely knew it was a dumb idea from the beginning. At the end of his life, it looks like he changed his mind, became more practical. Or maybe it was Socrates who was the foolish idealist; maybe it’s the mature Plato we discover in his later writings, certainly a more sensible Plato.
December 27, 2019

The Holy Family and Families Like Ours

I hope you’re still saying Merry Christmas! At least a few more days!
December 22, 2019

Homily: Love and Shame

It should be required reading, I think, for members of the clergy: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, that masterpiece of American literature and of the American psyche.
December 20, 2019

Column: Hope is the Inverse of Cancel Culture

Can we imagine enemies as friends, or an addict who’s finally free? What about your husband, your wife, your own hard heart? Can you imagine these surprisingly new? What about us? Can we imagine ourselves beautifully better, different? Can we conceive it? Is it even sensible to try, to ask these questions of hope?
December 20, 2019

Be Like Joseph

Matthew tells us Joseph was “righteous.” Which means, being a good Jew, that he was righteous before not only God, but the Law.
December 17, 2019

True Festivity, Or, On Reading Josef Pieper at Christmas

“Bustle does not make a festival; on the contrary, it can spoil one.”