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The End of Prestige

From the June/July 2024 Print Edition

For most of the Church’s history in the United States, Catholics have sought to demonstrate to their often suspicious neighbors the possibility of being a faithful Catholic and a patriotic American. This has been no easy task, given the modern and Protestant character of the nation’s founding . . . . Continue Reading »

Witness to Modernity

From the January 2024 Print Edition

Sooner or later, every generation begins to look backward. Instead of blaming present woes on present-day opponents, writers past middle age take the longer view of their lives. Not too long ago, such retrospectives in the Catholic world were dominated by those who had watched the Church change from . . . . Continue Reading »

Woke Religion

From the April 2021 Print Edition

We Americans tell our history in light of our awakenings, those periodic spasms of panic over the spiritual debts we have piled up against God as well as flesh and bone. This is what the summer’s racial unrest was: a mass attempt to expiate centuries of guilt. If we were purely corporeal beings, . . . . Continue Reading »