“I’m a pastor, not a scholar,” Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, head of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia since 2011, said when I interviewed him earlier last year for Catholic World Report about his new book.  “A bishop’s job is helping people get to heaven, not to Washington.” In fact, since the death of Francis Cardinal George...

Progressive arrogance.  Technocratic overreach.  Social engineering.  Racial tension.  Expanding executive powers.  Aggressive and endless waves of “experts.”  Economic disparity and unrest.  “Us” versus “them.” All are characteristics of social and political life in recent years in the United States.  So much so that some pundits and observers apparently find the combination alarming and unique—even unprecedented—in...

Having access to personal correspondence and other private papers is every biographer’s dream, a potential difference between a decent biography and a great biography.  In the case of Russell Kirk, the advantage was huge.  Kirk maintained a “massive—in some ways, beyond comprehension—correspondence” over the course of a prolific life in letters.  For example, Bradley Birzer,...