It has been a summer filled with the troubles of our time. In Iraq and Syria, barbaric fanatics have slaughtered thousands in the name of religion. In West Africa, hundreds have died from Ebola, a particularly virulent virus. Within those horrors, however, there were acts – heinous and heroic – that gave pause to think.
In recent months, people of goodwill throughout the world have been horrified by the violence perpetrated by the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS). Thousands of Christians and other religious minorities have been forced to leave their homes. Women have been raped.
In a year replete with devastating news, the June 22 death of Middle East scholar Fouad Ajami hit especially hard. For decades, Ajami – a man of genius, whom I was honored to call a friend – was an invaluable mentor in matters involving the Arab world and its often lethal discontents.
My son Stephen and I spent an unusual, albeit unusually moving, Independence Day:
Blessed Sacrament Church, Cypress Hills, was piping with the joy and enthusiasm of 82 children for a two-week Summer Vacation Bible Camp in July.
Richard of St. Victor, a 12th-century Scottish theologian, is not exactly a household name in 21st-century Christian circles.
Most attention-paying U.S. Catholics are aware of the beatification causes for Archbishop Fulton Sheen and Catholic Worker co-foundress Dorothy Day.
Thirty years after bursting onto the comic book scene, the wise-cracking, pizza-loving “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” (Paramount) re-emerge from the sewers of New York City. Their mission, once again: to save the world.
Like an airy souffle, director Lasse Hallstrom’s food-themed romantic fantasy “The Hundred-Foot Journey” (Disney) has an elegant appearance and a charming taste but not much substance.
In 1989, as the Cold War entered the bottom of the ninth inning, political scientist Francis Fukuyama wrote a memorable essay titled “The End of History?” And the argument resolved itself in a straightforward answer: “Yes.”
