A depiction of the murder of St. Thomas Becket by knights of his friend King Henry II of England. From the Carrow Psalter, 1250, ink, gold and parchment. Courtesy Walters Art Museum.
OK, so who had Pope Leo XIV versus President Donald J. Trump on their fight card, let alone bingo card?
Today, many shocked posters on the internet are saying they didn’t. But I did.
Read MorePope Leo XIV waving from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica after being chosen pope on May 8. His choice of the name Leo and his appearance in the short stole known as the mozzetta, harking back to Pope Benedict XVI’s first appearance after becoming pope, suggests this Pope Francis ally will be a bridge builder as well as a counterpoint to conservatives. Photograph by Edgar Beltrán / The Pillar.
So who had Robert Francis Prevost on their bingo card?
No one, right? The election of the cardinal to succeed Pope Francis as Leo XIV came so far out of left field as to be outside the park of the Chicago-born Leo’s beloved White Sox. And yet, it didn’t take long to see that the choice of Leo – calm, centered, bespectacled, math-studying, multilingual, trumpet- and tennis-playing ,Republican primary-voting, Francis-mentored Leo – was the perfect one to countermand the rising American nationalism under President Donald J. Trump.
Read MoreThe.Greek mythological figure Narcissus — seen here in a fresco in Pompei — gives his name to a quality and disorder that may be the defining attribute of the day. r
You know how people ask what your pronouns are nowadays, or include them in email signatures, as a result of nonbinary and trans people who identify as “they” even though it’s a plural? Well, we don’t have to ask many people in the news what they’re pronouns are. Let’s just assume they’re the unholy trinity of me, myself and I.
Read MoreLucas Cranach the Elder’s “Lady Justice” (1537), oil on panel. Collection of Fridart Stichting, a foundation in Amsterdam.
It’s hard to know where to begin with the Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe v. Wade. The repercussions are that great.
For women who seek abortions, the 6-3 decision marks an eventual return to coat-hanger, knitting-needle days. If the pro-life crowd — which is generally pro-guns and pro-death penalty — thinks it has seen death, it’s hasn’t seen anything yet. Women have always sought abortions and will continue to do so, now less safely. But now death will come in other ways, too.
Read MoreThe Tops supermarket in Buffalo, seen here in February. On May 14, a self-described white supremacist gunned down 13 people at Tops, killing 10 of them. Eleven of the victims were Black. Photograph by Andre Carrotflower.
Perhaps the single most important phenomenon in the United States in this still-young century is that white people are on their way to becoming a majority-minority — less than 50% of the population — by the next decade or so. This is not an opinion. It is a fact. There is nothing white people or anyone else can do to stop it. It will happen, because it is happening.
The United States has always been a country with a violent, racist streak, but this not-so-simple fact of the white majority-minority has taken us to new heights — which is to say new depths….
Read MoreArtemisia Gentileschi’s “Susanna and the Elders” (circa 1610), oil on canvas, Schönborn Collection, Pommersfelden, Germany. Gentileschi was raped by her artist father Orazio’s assistant, Agostino Tassi, who had been engaged to give her art leassons, then tortured to make sure she was telling the truth. She played out her survival in paintings in which biblical heroines triumphed over male assault. Whenever I think of men trying to control women, I think of works like this one.
Just in time for Mother’s Day, the United States Supreme Court has a gift that is “sure” to warm the hearts of moms and would-be moms everywhere — a leaked draft decision that would appear to repeal Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that made abortion legal in America. Chief Justice John Roberts — whose position as a swing vote on the court appears to have been nullified by the arrival of conservative Amy “the Handmaiden” Coney Barrett and whose legacy is in jeopardy — was shocked, shocked I tell you, that someone leaked the draft and has vowed an investigation. But the leak is hardly the point, which we’ll get to in a minute.
Read MoreChurch fathers like St. Augustine of Hippo, seen here in Vittore Carpaccio’s 1502 painting “Vision of St. Augustine,” were influenced by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle in holding that abortion was acceptable in the first trimester because the fetus had not yet been “ensouled.”
Before I went to Sarah Lawrence College, I attended Trinity College in Washington, D.C., an excellent school that set me on the path of cultural writing. Among my professors was a contrary sort who taught philosophy. He was married to a well-known feminist, but despite this — or perhaps because of it — he liked to confound his logic class in this women’s college by proclaiming women were illogical and that no one would ace or even pass the course unless he graded on a curve. (I used to sit there, praying, “Please let him grade on a curve. Please let him grade on a curve.”)
The professor bewitched, bothered and bewildered the diverse class, which included everyone from Irish nuns to the daughters of Iranian diplomats — with Aristotelean syllogisms and thought experiments like the following.:
Say New York City is under threat of annihilation, and the only thing that will save it is the sacrifice of one man. Do you sacrifice the one man? The answer, which thrust the class into paroxysms of frustration, outrage and utter revolt, is that you can’t. Each life, our professor said, is worth the same as any other. — or millions of others. Life cannot be quantified. As Soviet dictator Josef Stalin is said to have observed — although he may not have meant it the way my professor did — “One man’s death is a tragedy. Twenty million (the number of Russian who died in World War II) is a statistic.”
I thought about all this when I read Ross Douthat’s New York TImes column on American bishops’ threatening to withhold Holy Communion from Roman Catholic politicians who are pro-choice, like President Joe Biden.
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