The Dispatch
“Every truth is from the Holy Spirit”: On Pentecost Sunday
On the Readings for Pentecost Sunday, May 20, 2018 […]
Walker Percy
The Dispatch
Revisiting Father Urban at 60
Father Urban turned 60 last year. Which is to say that 2022 brought the 60th anniversary of publication of J.F. Powers’ 1962 novel about a priest, Morte d’Urban. A year later, in 1963, the book […]
The Dispatch
Extra, extra! News and tidings for April 13, 2022
An unexpected controversy: If the book “Ask Your Husband” were pulled from publication, you might have thought it would be after the publisher faced pushback from scholars taking issue with its provocative reading of the […]
The Dispatch
A cautious and skillful map through the world of late modern fiction
In his essay, “A Secret Vice,” originally a 1931 lecture at Pembroke College, Oxford, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote of a “secret hierarchy” of individuals who have the curious hobby of constructing their own languages. Perhaps the […]
Essay
The God Question Revisited
Walker Percy’s father committed suicide when Walker was a teenager. After his mother drove her car off a Louisiana bridge, he was raised by an agnostic first-cousin. Such experiences have driven many a young soul […]
Editorial
In gratitude for the gift of the “Catechism of the Catholic Church”
How I learned that reading and studying the Catechism, Church doctrine and dogma, and theology are not ultimately about knowing things or facts but about knowing […]
The Dispatch
Space is scary: “Life” and Walker Percy’s angels and beasts
Two new entries in the “space is scary” genre are arriving in theaters this spring. One is a big franchise title: Alien: Covenant, out in a couple months. The other is the recently released Life, […]