Latest Posts

May 03, 2012

The Tragedy of Dutch Compassion

In yesterday’s post I highlighted a pair of articles that cover the transition over the last 120 years or so in the Netherlands from an emphasis on private charitable giving to reliance upon the welfare state. Continue Reading...
May 03, 2012

The Inhumane Wendell Berry

“Can one have an off day in giving the Jefferson Lecture (an off week or month in writing it)?” asks Matthew J. Franck in reference to the recent NEH honor afforded to agrarian Wendell Berry. Continue Reading...
May 02, 2012

The Nobility and Greatness of Work

May 1st was the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker on the Catholic calendar, and in 2005, Pope Benedict XVI offered a short reflection on human labor when speaking to construction workers (via Whispers in the Loggia): I’m taken in mind to how, in the New Testament, in the profession of Jesus before his public ministry, the word “tecton” appears, which we translate as “carpenter,” because then homes were mostly homes of wood. Continue Reading...