This term, I look an economics class, and our final papers afforded an opportunity for me to revisit a subject that used to be nearer and dearer to me than time now allows: The travails of the Russian economy following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the lessons for us of that experience. Demands of time […]
Jurisdiction, several justices of the Supreme Court have bemoaned, “is a word of many, too many, meanings. This variety of meaning has insidiously tempted courts, this one included, to engage in less than meticulous, sometimes even profligate … use of the term.” In Catholic parlance, a similar difficulty bedevils the word “teaching.” What in the […]
It is, of course, very easy to fault our bishops as weak, useless, spineless, ineffectual bumblers, the best of whom might, on a good day, rise to the dizzying height of “acceptable.” Very easy. Cf. St. John Chrysostom, Homily 3 on Acts. In response to such criticisms, I am sometimes asked to say just what […]
I am sometimes asked whether the reforms that I would implement if placed in charge of a parish’s liturgy are really practical; “is it not true,” they might ask, “that many Catholics can’t sing chant?” I have an answer to that, but first I want to provide some context. The seminal moment in my thinking […]
TIP JAR:
New tracker, 2014/11/14!