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Notre Dame 11

The Wicked Common Good: An All Hallows’ Eve Meditation

The spirit of community that arises from festivals such as Halloween is a common good. I suggest that it is also a great time to practice the virtues of shared…
October 31, 2022

Notre Dame and the Need for the Past

We know now that much of the Notre Dame Cathedral survived and that it will be rebuilt. But while the fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral burned, Americans mourned. They…

The Good Man Must Himself Be a True Poem

The M.F.A. program in Creative Writing at the University of Notre Dame has just published an interview with me as part of its alumni series.  There, I get to reflect…

Provincializing the University: A Proposal for Reform

Last November, FPR readers may recall, some of our writers held a panel discussion on The Place of Education at the University of Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture's…

This Is My Son: Two Years Later

Devon, PA.  Two years ago this week, President Obama delivered the commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame.  Great numbers of students, faculty, alumni, and American Catholics protested the…

Of Humility and Gratitude: Dana Gioia at Notre Dame

Dana Gioia's brief but worthy address at Notre Dame.

Milliner on Wilson, Wilson on Gioia: Catholic Intellectuals and Modern Culture

Matthew J. Milliner explicates "Art and Beauty," while Dana Gioia wins Notre Dame's Laetare Medal

Their Time Up at State College

East Lansing, MI.  Back home in the steady snows of Michigan, I came across an old poem of mine, the other day, that seems like an appropriate riposte to Jeffrey…

The Eccentricity of the Saints

Devon, PA.  Earlier this week, some devout and worthy reader on the Porch proposed G.K. Chesterton as the patron saint of the Front Porch Republic.  Aside from heartily endorsing the…

This is My Son

Devon, PA.  This is my son.  As you see him here, he has been alive for just about one-hundred-forty days and has, this and other ultrasound images suggest, my nose…

An Elegy for South Bend

  Devon, PA.  Some years ago, early in my graduate student days in South Bend, I was invited to begin an opinion column in the campus newspaper, The Observer.  The…