In ‘The Road Taken,’ Patrick Leahy’s deeply personal new memoir, he writes lovingly about his family, his Catholic faith and his home state but seems focused largely on describing the Washington, D.C., that was—and what it has become.
Arts & Culture
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: Flannery O’Connor’s sacramental vision
Jessica Hooten Wilson builds ‘Flannery O’Connor’s ‘Why Do the Heathen Rage?’: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at a Work in Progress’ around the previously unpublished manuscript pages of O’Connor’s third novel, which was never finished.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: In his latest book, Christian Wiman looks despair in the face
In ‘Zero at the Bone,’ Christian Wiman offers a prismatic series of 50 chapters (52, counting the mystical zeros at the beginning and end) featuring essays, poems, theological reflections, personal reminiscences and literary analyses.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Elizabeth Cullinan, the ‘criminally under-read’ bard of the Bronx Irish
Elizabeth Cullinan’s literary output was not prodigious—but her memorable characters and close attention to the Irish-American culture in which she lived made her a prominent fiction writer in the ’70s and ’80s.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Movie Club
‘Whiplash’: a film about disordered attachments and the cost of greatness
Played by Miles Teller, Andrew falls prey to an obsession so powerful that it robs us of the clarity or freedom to make good choices.
Posted inArts & Culture, Poetry
Spring poetry roundup: Mini catechisms in verse
In one way or another, these collections bear the traces of the divine, of the needful Christ.
Posted inArts & Culture, Music
Kacey Musgraves’s new album ‘Deeper Well’ might be her most spiritual work yet
Kacey Musgraves’s new album is not worship music, but rather songs about theological concepts for a secular audience.
Posted inArts & Culture, Film
‘Late Night with the Devil’ asks: What would happen if we communicated with demons on live TV?
“Late Night with the Devil” is a film that lives on the knife’s (or dagger’s) edge—a stark reminder that we are all possessed by something.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Gerhard Lohfink on Jesus, discipleship and the life of faith
Gerhard Lohfink, who died last week in his native Germany at the age of 89, leaves behind an impressive legacy of faith-informed scholarship on the New Testament and Christian discipleship.
Posted inArts & Culture, Ideas
College basketball is putting women’s sports (and faith) in the spotlight
N.C.A.A. women’s hoops attracted a record number of viewers this season—and made stars of some compelling players and coaches.