March 19, 2011

Lessons from the Late Republic

The republic to which I refer is not Plato’s classic “Just City in Speech,” nor the American Republic created by the Founding Fathers, but the late Roman Republic. Although Mr. Madison’s form of government was self-consciously...

April 18, 2005

Conclave, then and now

Then The death of Pope Clement IV on 29 November 1268 began a papal interregnum of almost three years, until Teobaldo Visconti was elected on 1 September 1271, then crowned with the name of Pope Gregory X on 27 March 1272. Conclave, the tradition of ...

April 3, 2005

John Paul II and Terri Schiavo

A master of theatrical timing to the very end, it is worth noting that John Paul II II, 264th successor of St. Peter and Vicar of Christ, died two days after Terri Schiavo, a small and seemingly insignificant member of his enormous flock.  There...

November 2, 2004

Kerry and Alcibiades

It is Election Day and Americans are still trying to figure out John F. Kerry.  Perhaps a little history will help.  The human story is replete with men who are like one another, so much so that in the First Century A. D. the Greek his...