In ‘The Last Brahmin,’ Luke Nichter presents Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. as a man who, from cradle to grave, loved his family and his country, the ideals of both of which he tried to live up to his entire life.
History
Posted inFaith, Faith and Reason
‘Rerum Novarum’ is 130 years old. What would Leo XIII say about today’s gig economy?
An an important anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s famous encyclical on workers’ rights, a look at how ‘Rerum Novarum’ applies to the vagaries of our new economy.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
A New Orleans jazz hall and its history in the fight for Black freedom
In post-Civil War New Orleans, Creole leaders won elections and oversaw the desegregation of public schools, a short-lived experiment destroyed after Reconstruction.
Posted inPolitics & Society, Short Take
Walter Mondale was a decent man who knew how to laugh at himself. We need more politicians like him.
Walter F. Mondale was the embodiment of a kind of decency and civility that has all but disappeared from the American political scene.
Posted inArts & Culture, Ideas
Fifty years ago, my father leaked the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times. It changed his life — and mine.
Half a century later, Robert Ellsberg looks back on his father’s famous release of the Pentagon Papers—and the consequences of that decision for his father, for him and for the nation.
Posted inFaith, Short Take
The Catholic priest who refused a lifeboat rescue: A forgotten story from the sinking of the Titanic
On the 109th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, Ashley Herzog writes about the last moments of Father Thomas Byles, who ministered to Catholic passengers and is being proposed for sainthood.
Posted inFaith, Of Many Things
What we can learn from Prince Philip’s extraordinary life
Prince Philip once described himself as “a discredited Balkan prince of no particular merit or distinction.” Self-deprecation, of course, was one of his famous traits. But there were others, which point to some of the lessons to be gleaned from his extraordinary life.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
What has the Catholic Book Club been reading?
The two most recent selections by the Catholic Book Club couldn’t have been more different: A look at Thomas Jefferson’s quixotic attempt to rewrite the Bible, and Niall Williams’s richly evocative novel about a small village in the west of Ireland.
Posted inArts & Culture, Ideas
When America magazine rejected William Faulkner, J.K. Rowling and Taylor Swift from our pages
Going through old files, America’s editors found a few interesting submissions (and rejections).
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: Inside the very Catholic history of college basketball
John Gasaway examines the entire history of Catholic college basketball in the United States. We see just how many different teams, coaches and athletes have contributed to a reputation for basketball excellence, from the University of San Francisco to Georgetown, Gonzaga and Villanova.