COMMENTARY In Harper Lee’s classic novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” there is a point where Atticus Finch, seeking to teach his son about making reparation for damaging another’s property (and about something else, too) orders his young son Jem to visit the bedside of sickly old Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose and read aloud to her. […]
Elizabeth Scalia: Let the jeering skulls laugh
IT IS GOOD Like St. Teresa of Avila, I have a skull on my desk. Two, actually — one plain and one riotously decorated in green and purple. I think they’re funny; they remind me not to take myself, or the world, too seriously. When I have tied myself into knots due to some perceived […]
Elizabeth Scalia: The prayers of Bakhita
COMMENTARY When she was canonized by Pope St. John Paul in 2000, Josephine Bakhita immediately became the patron saint of survivors of human trafficking. Even a cursory read of her story more than explains why. Kidnapped from the Sudanese village where her father was a chieftain and ironically renamed “Bakhita” (Arabic for the “lucky” or […]