By Joseph Pearce Joseph Pearce is a senior contributor to Crisis. He is director of book publishing at the Augustine Institute, editor of the St. Austin Review, and series editor of the Ignatius Critical Editions. An acclaimed biographer and literary scholar, his latest book is Literature: What Every Catholic Should Know (Augustine Institute, 2019). His website is jpearce.co. The Merchant of Venice is perhaps the greatest and indubitably the most controversial of Shakespeare’s comedies. It has been misunderstood and misconstrued to such a degree, however, that it is often seen as a tragedy, not a comedy. Such is the critical blindness of the age in which we find …
The Foolish Communicant
By Christina Debusschere Christina Debusschere is a wife and mother from Alberta, Canada. After being homeschooled K-12, she received her Bachelor of Arts in Music and Bachelor of Education from the Concordia University of Edmonton. She blogs with her husband at www.theromanticcatholic.wordpress.com. Recently, a piece that I wrote concerning Communion on the tongue was published by Crisis Magazine, and this post is a sequel to good news. Effective July 1st, permission was granted for Catholics in our archdiocese to once again receive Communion on the tongue. Many of us breathed a collective sigh of relief and thanked God. This year has been long without …
The case and death of Alfie Evans raises issues that must be addressed
Christopher R. Altieri is a journalist, editor, and author of three books. He is contributing editor to Catholic World Report At the very least, we want to be able to entrust our care and that of our loved ones to people who are not on the fence about whether life is a basic and irreducible good. Any genuinely comprehensive review of the case of Alfie Evans would require many months and significant resources, not to mention the willingness of his parents, attorneys, doctors, and judges to sit for extended interviews. Our desire to know is powerful, as is our desire to blame. …
Simone Biles, Uncle Screwtape, and the elite praise of “radical courage”
Ben Reinhard is Associate Professor of English Language and Literature at Christendom College. He holds a B.A. from Purdue, as well as an M.M.S and Ph.D from the University of Notre Dame. As Chesterton observed long ago, “the modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad” – and mad virtues are far more dangerous than vices. July 29, 2021 Ben Reinhard The Dispatch 15Print In The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis’s senior devil reminds his protégé that every age and every culture has its characteristic vices and virtues. It is the devil’s job to confuse men as to what those virtues actually are: We …
The bishops, Donatism, and President Biden
George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies. He is the author of over twenty books, including Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II (1999), The End and the Beginning: Pope John Paul II—The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy (2010), and The Irony of Modern Catholic History: How the Church Rediscovered Itself and Challenged the Modern World to Reform. His most recent books are The Next Pope: The Office of Peter and a Church in Mission (2020), and Not Forgotten: Elegies for, and Reminiscences of, a Diverse …
Liberal authoritarianism and the traditional Latin Mass
George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies. He is the author of over twenty books, including Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II (1999), The End and the Beginning: Pope John Paul II—The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy (2010), and The Irony of Modern Catholic History: How the Church Rediscovered Itself and Challenged the Modern World to Reform. His most recent books are The Next Pope: The Office of Peter and a Church in Mission (2020), and Not Forgotten: Elegies for, and Reminiscences of, a Diverse …
The Disappointing “Conservative” Supreme Court
By Fr. Mario Alexis Portella Fr. Mario Alexis Portella is a priest of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore and Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Florence, Italy. He was born in New York and holds a doctorate in canon law and civil law from the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. He is the author of Islam: Religion of Peace?—The Violation of Natural Rights and Western Cover-Up (Westbow Press, 2018). The U.S. Supreme Court, on the last day of the 2020-2021 session, in a 7-3 vote—the dissenters were Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas—declined to hear the case in which floral artist …
Are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness Still Self-Evident Rights?
John Clark is an online-homeschool course developer for Seton Home Study School, a speechwriter, and the author of two books, Who’s Got You? and How to Be a Superman Dad in a Kryptonite World, Even When You Can’t Afford A Decent Cape. He has written hundreds of articles and blogs about Catholic family life and apologetics in such places as Magis Center, Seton Magazine, and Catholic Digest. John and his wife Lisa have nine children and live in Florida. Whether it is self-evident or not, it is the philosophical belief in the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that helped …
John Paul II Was Right: There Is No Freedom Without Truth
Monika Jablonska is a consultant with expertise in international business transactions and NGOs, lawyer, and philanthropist. Currently, Ms. Jablonska is working on her Ph.D. thesis in political science. She is the author of Wind from Heaven: John Paul II, The Poet Who Became Pope. Her second book about St. John Paul II will be released in 2021. She also writes for various magazines and newspapers in the United States and Europe. “There can be no rule of law … unless citizens and especially leaders are convinced that there is no freedom without truth.” —Pope St. John Paul II Man is called …
The Family is the Front Line in the Battle for Truth
Erika J. Ahern is a senior classical educator, consultant, and writer. She blogs, vlogs, and consults at Verity Ed, where she equips parents with the tools, information, and confidence to claim their role as their children’s primary educators. You can pick up a copy of her latest eBook, Outside the Box, at her website. Erika lives in Connecticut with her husband, Todd, and their six children. Parenting means teaching your children how to distinguish between absolute truth and subjective opinion. The primary purpose of parenting is to educate our children in the truth, to give them a formation in virtue that will free …