The Jewish people in America have long punched above their demographic weight. Consider how deprived our science, music, letters, film and law would be absent the contributions of Abraham’s stock. Owing to this and all the discredited drivel about the American slave trade’s supposed Jewish hub, a fresh, thoughtful treatment of Jews and America’s original […]
History
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: Elizabethan drama (and fiction)
In her debut novel ‘Lightborne,’ Hesse Phillips portrays a world of intrigues swirling around Christopher Marlowe and his London circle.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: The return of Thomas Pynchon
A kind of maximalist profusion of detail and incident characterizes ‘Shadow Ticket,’ though this new novel from Thomas Pynchon might also be categorized as zany neo-noir—or slapstick noir—for developing the noir tropes of the 1930s and 1940s in a less hardboiled, wackier direction.
Posted inCatholic Book Club
‘Gaudium et Spes’ and the optimistic final days of Vatican II
Vatican II closed 60 years ago this week. One of its final documents, “Gaudium et Spes,” has also proved to be perhaps its most influential.
Posted inFaith, Faith and Reason
Archbishop Lori: Lessons from the Jesuits for the United States at 250
The history of the Society of Jesus in America mirrors that of the nation: full of promise and contradiction; always being redeemed through conversion.
Posted inArts & Culture, Television
The Catholic stories Ken Burns left out of his new American Revolution documentary
Ken Burns’s new documentary achieves a tone that is unmistakably Burns: measured, atmospheric, at times elegiac and always attentive to nuance.
Posted inCatholic Book Club
‘Lumen Gentium’: The master work of Vatican II
Some of the most resonant and memorable phrases of Vatican II come from “Lumen Gentium,” including the description of the church as the people of God.
Posted inArts & Culture, Film
In ‘One Battle After Another,’ Thomas Pynchon’s genius becomes a cinematic masterpiece
Paul Thomas Anderson has already cemented his mark on Hollywood, but “One Battle After Another” may well serve as his crown jewel.
Posted inBooks
Review: A new twist on a classic text
In their compelling new translation of the “Aeneid,” Scott McGill and Susannah Wright offer a dynamic, poignant and thought-provoking take on this classic poem.
Posted inNews
After 800 years of silence, the oldest pipe organ in the Christian world plays again
Researchers believe that the Crusaders brought the organ to Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, in the 11th century during their period of rule over Jerusalem. After a century of use, the Crusaders buried it to protect it from invading Muslim armies.