How bad a year has it been? Let me not count the ways. Good books can hearten us in 2021 and beyond, though. Herewith, then, some suggestions for Christmastide book-giving:
“Prison Journal, …
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By GEORGE WEIGEL
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12/17/20
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Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
There are many exemplars of the cardinal virtue of courage in the Catholic Church today: Catholics in Hong Kong who risk their lives and livelihoods in defense …
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By GEORGE WEIGEL
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11/18/20
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Great Britain’s parliamentary democracy has no constitutional text, but rather a “constitution” composed of centuries of legal traditions and precedents. So when British courts make grave …
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By GEORGE WEIGEL
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10/21/20
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Conversations with Father Robert Imbelli have been a great blessing in recent years. I have rarely met a more even-tempered and gracious man: a true churchman who, in retirement after years of …
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By GEORGE WEIGEL
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9/23/20
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I’d heard about Father Alexander Sherbrooke long before we met in June 2011; Father Sherbrooke had been a mentor for young friends of mine who had worked at St. Patrick’s Church in London …
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By GEORGE WEIGEL
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7/15/20
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As the world and the Church marked the centenary of the birth of Pope St. John Paul II May 18, a kaleidoscope of memories shaped my prayer and reflection that day. John Paul II at his dinner table, …
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By GEORGE WEIGEL
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5/20/20
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The unanimous decision by Australia’s High Court to quash Cardinal George Pell’s convictions on charges of “historic sexual abuse” and acquit him of those crimes was entirely welcome. Truth …
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By GEORGE WEIGEL
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4/22/20
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Seventy-five years ago, on Jan. 27, 1945, the infantrymen of the Red Army’s 322nd Rifle Division were bludgeoning their way into the Third Reich when they discovered the Auschwitz-Birkenau …
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By GEORGE WEIGEL
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2/26/20
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During and after the grim martial law period in the early 1980s, many freedom-minded Poles would greet each other on Jan. 1 with a sardonic wish: “May the new year be better than you know …
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By GEORGE WEIGEL
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1/15/20
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ROME. Even the greatest enthusiasts of the present pontificate might not assert that Pope Francis has an inspiring liturgical style. Like the old-school Jesuit he resembles in many ways, the Holy …
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By GEORGE WEIGEL
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11/20/19
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One of the curiosities of the 21st-century Catholic debate is that many Catholic traditionalists (especially integralists) and a high percentage of Catholic progressives make the same mistake in …
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By GEORGE WEIGEL
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10/23/19
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The eminent sociologist Peter Rossi was a world-class punster whose scholarly accomplishments fed a sometimes-whimsical view of the human condition—in which, Rossi memorably observed, “there are …
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By GEORGE WEIGEL
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9/25/19
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Thanks to President Trump’s “America First” rhetoric and the rise of populist-nationalist parties in Europe, there’s a lot of debate about “nationalism” these days. On that subject, as on …
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By GEORGE WEIGEL
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8/14/19
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Continuing a venerable tradition, I offer the following for your canicular reading pleasure:
John Hay spent decades …
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By GEORGE WEIGEL
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7/17/19
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Pope Francis’s recent motu proprio on sexual abuse, Vos estis lux mundi (You Are the Light of the World), was a welcome addition to Church law, as world Catholicism seeks to heal the wounds of …
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By GEORGE WEIGEL
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6/19/19
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In Herman Wouk’s novel, “War and Remembrance,” Warren Henry shocks his Bible-reading father, the novel’s hero, by claiming that human …
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By GEORGE WEIGEL
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5/22/19
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Some two millennia ago, a ragtag bunch of nobodies learned what their tortured and executed friend, the rabbi Jesus from Nazareth, meant by “rising from the dead” (Mark 9:9-10)—because …
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By GEORGE WEIGEL
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4/25/19
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When a pope is elected, the cardinals who have just chosen him make their way to the Hall of Benedictions atop the narthex of St. Peter’s Basilica. It’s a challenging journey for some: In 2005, …
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By GEORGE WEIGEL
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3/27/19
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Despite Pope Francis’ lecture on the subject at Synod 2015, and notwithstanding the passages on it in Synod 2018’s final report, there is little agreement in 21st-century Catholicism on what …
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By GEORGE WEIGEL
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2/27/19
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The Vatican is a hotbed of rumor, gossip and speculation at the best of times—and these times are not those times. The Roman atmosphere at the beginning of 2019 is typically fetid and sometimes …
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By GEORGE WEIGEL
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1/30/19
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