Martin Scorsese’s central artistic concern is the city of New York, but the stories he chooses to depict are also linked by a common moral structure. He is powerfully drawn to opportunities to show how people maintain a belief in their own innocence. His protagonists are usually deeply flawed (to
“A schism is fueled by people who, little by little, latch themselves on to the notorious doings of the opposition.” – Yves Congar, O.P. One of the potential pitfalls of striving to be holy is the temptation to schism. This hazard is not unique to Christianity – Islam, for instance,
Amid the autumn breach, unfound Arrested by untold designs The messenger unheard A verse To time and restive vine
Although often attributed to John Paul II, there’s no concrete proof of who actually said the phrase: “The issue of pornography is not that it shows too much, but that it shows too little.” Whoever said it, I can think of no better explanation for the Church’s teaching on sexuality.
The Fall of a Man When I was a boy, I always had a mathematical mind. From as early as I can remember I found the great mysteries of the universe utterly fascinating, learning the names of the planets of the solar system at two years old, and taking an
“Bless you prison, bless you for being in my life. For there, lying upon the rotting prison straw, I came to realize that the object of life is not prosperity as we are made to believe, but the maturity of the human soul.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago I recently
In the end, Mishima could not imagine what winning looked like.
I have spent plenty of moonlit nights on back porches with disciples of The Benedict Option and The Restoration of Christian Culture sketching an ideal faith community. One unanswered question in our conversations is how to approach work when our conscience (or a hostile culture) no longer allows us to work quietly in established institutions.
The anti-Christs of the twentieth century sought to be worshipped instead of God. The anti-Christ of the twenty-first seeks to eradicate the capacity for worship altogether.
He wasn’t a Billionaire CEO, Neuroscientist, or Diplomat – he was none of these things. He was nothing extraordinary by the world’s standards. But he was my father.