Article Archive
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Benedict on the Border--A Showdown over Church and Nation-State
With the visit of Pope Benedict to the U.S., American Catholics are faced with a grave confrontation between Church and State, a conflict between their supernatural faith and their patriotic duty, unparalleled in the English-speaking world since Pope Pius V deposed Queen Elizabeth I—and encouraged Catholics in her realm to topple her from power. Right? That’s what you’d think, from reading the statements of open-borders activists alongside the complaints of restrictionist ex-Catholics like Tom Tancredo. In fact, the current argument is much more complicated, and reflects millennia of tension between the notion of national sovereignty and the universal claims of Christian faith and morals. [Read More]
The Empty Manger
The God we Christians adore climbed down from the pillar of fire, emerged from the burning bush, to walk among us. He didn’t, like Zeus, impersonate a swan or bull, or like Apollo a golden youth. Instead, He lay down as a helpless infant among the beasts, and placed Himself entirely at our mercy. So likewise would He, one day, lay down His life. [Read More]
Sell Your Souls to Save Your Skins
Giuliani discovered that conservative voters are less principled than liberals, more willing to trade off what they hold sacred so as to save their skins. Too many Americans who watched with horror the events of Sept. 11, 2001 on television have turned to the man who stood resolutely behind a microphone all through the day, reassuring them in a deep, masculine voice that all was well—even as George Bush cowered somewhere with My Pet Goat, and Dick Cheney lurked in an undisclosed location studying oil maps of Iraq. [Read More]
Christmas on the West Bank
If family members have been broadly hinting that it’s “someone else’s turn” to host the holiday, I suggest you leap to your feet this year and volunteer. That’ll get you points for being proactive. But when your guests arrive on Christmas Eve or Day, they’re in for a big surprise. You’ll be serving no turkey, no ham, no stuffing and no eggnog. There won’t be a trace of pine, poinsettia, holly or mistletoe. And no Christmas carols either. Because you're hosting an “authentic Middle Eastern Christmas,” just like they have over in Bethlehem. [Read More]
The Addams Family Chapel
If the Immaculate Conception is all about the liberation from death and decay, no one told that to the Capuchin friars of the parish in Rome named for this feast, Santa Maria della Concezione. This chapel attracts only discerning visitors because—hold onto your lunch—it is furnished entirely with human skeletons and skulls. [Read More]
The Real St. Nicholas
One legend of St. Nicholas tells that three young boys had been killed by a local maniac in Myra, and their bodies preserved in a pickle barrel. The bishop opened the barrel, discovered the corpses, and promptly raised them from the dead—winning acclaim ever after as the patron saint of children, pickles, and barrels. [Read More]
Halloween: The Seven Deadly Courses
Make your front door the gateway to the spooky realm of purgative suffering by hanging the entrance, inside and out, with thick black velvet curtains. Keep the lighting dim, and improvise a fog machine with dry ice and a fan-or clouds from your favorite hookah pipe. Cover all the windows with black crepe paper, and rope off whole sections of the house with crime scene tape. If you have wooden floors, play a game with the kids, where you sketch the outlines of their little "corpses" on the floor. The atmosphere you want is something like a funeral parlor—run by the Addams Family. [Read More]
Absinthe and the Apocalyse
As the Bush administration, with the full-throat support of an unhinged media, whips up the public for a looming war with Iran, a sober citizen's thoughts run naturally to the Apocalypse. One's next thought, inevitably, is of absinthe. [Read More]
Flogging Brother Ass
Francis subjected himself and his followers to a poverty that appalled their fellow beggars, fasting frequently and sleeping on dirt (when perfectly good piles of filthy straw were available), taking all too literally Christ’s eerie injunction, “Sell all you have, give it to the poor, and come follow me.” When it comes to sex, Francis didn’t just give up playing the field and settle down with a life partner; he embraced total celibacy, and scourged his own flesh to remind it of its place. Naming his body “Brother Ass," he treated it as harshly as Italian peasants did their donkeys. [Read More]
The Vatican Space Program
The Assumption is not something invented by Pope Pius XII in 1950, the year when he infallibly declared it a dogma of the Catholic Church. Nor was he introducing some pious innovation to the core of the Catholic faith, indulging the excessive piety of Marian Catholics, or even—as C.G. Jung suggested—“restoring the feminine principle to the Godhead.” No, the pope was doing something much more important: He was beating the Russians into space. [Read More]