Friday Links
June 6, 2025
Well, Killoughcarron, Creeslough, Co. Donegal
Great Vespers for the 1,700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea
Julia Yost on The Scandal of Dogmatism
The God of Wes Anderson
Daniel McInerny asks: What Moves Your Heart?
Pope Leo on the workers in the vineyard
A Ukrainian Crime Caper That Undermines Expectations
MAiD: Are We Sleepwalking Down a Slippery Slope?
Great Vespers for the 1,700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea
And for some beauty in your life, Great Vespers from The Durandus Institute…
The God of Wes Anderson
The God of Francis Thompson is the God that operates in Wes Anderson’s latest feature, The Phoenician Scheme. The film follows Anatole “Zsa-Zsa” Korda (Benicio del Toro), an industrialist and morally bankrupt magnate in the style of J. Paul Getty or Aristotle Onassis who, after surviving yet another mysterious assassination attempt, decides to call upon his estranged daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton), a novice “sister of the cloth.” He intends not only to bequeath his vast fortune to her, but also to enlist her in completing the “most important project of [his] lifetime,” the “Korda Land and Sea Phoenician Infrastructure Scheme.”
Julia Yost on The Scandal of Dogmatism
In her fantastic review of Paul Elie’s The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s, Julia Yost writes:
One man’s ordinary is another man’s anomie. In 1897, at the end of the century of revolutions, the sociologist Emile Durkheim described four types of suicide, one of which ensues upon society-wide moral deregulation. When dogmas and stigmas melt into air, clearing the way for “ordinary” modern life, many people will feel that their lives are suddenly without meaning.
Daniel McInerny asks: What Moves Your Heart?
His answer (along with a promise of an audio course to come):
. . . poetic experience is an encounter with some beautiful aspect of the world that enraptures our entire self—or the core of our entire self, what we often refer to as “the heart.”
Pope Leo on the workers in the vineyard
This is wonderful:
I would like to look at one of Jesus’ parables again. Also in this case, it is a story that fosters our hope. Indeed, at times we have the impression that we cannot find meaning for our lives: we feel useless, inadequate, just like the labourers who wait in the marketplace, waiting for someone to hire them to work. But sometimes time passes, life goes by, and we do not feel acknowledged or appreciated. Perhaps we did not arrive in time, others appeared before us, or problems held us up elsewhere.
A Ukrainian Crime Caper That Undermines Expectations
This is behind a paywall, though you can do a 30 day free trial to read it. I’m sharing because I love this Kyiv-based crime series written by Andrey Kurkov and translated by Boris Dralyuk and want to suggest the first two books (the third is not out here yet) for your summer reading. Summer is one of the best times to dive into a new series (the other time is any other time during the year). John Wilson recommends the series and he is never wrong, so there’s that! The series has everything you want in a crime series: an appealing protagonist—the “melancholic” Samson, a love interest, and a sense of place. The sense of place, the geography of any crime series, is essential, and this one is evocative and interesting—post-Revolution Kyiv. What I also love about these books is that I can share them with my teenage niece, who is also a lover of crime fiction. Also, I highly recommend Michael Connolly’s new one, Nightshade. This is Connolly’s 40th book, I think, and, yes, we’ve got a troublesome detective and a murder or two, just like in most of Connolly’s other novels, but this feels fresh. Maybe it is the setting—Catalina Island—or the fact that our protagonist (Detective Stilwell), likes his new surroundings, despite getting kicked to the curb (dock, in this case) due to bad behavior and department politics.
MAiD: Are We Sleepwalking Down a Slippery Slope?
This is a very good discussion on MAiD with Susannah Black Roberts hosting Eve Slater, MD, Audrey Pollnow, and Sebastian Milbank. They talk about “the dangers and consequences of state-sanctioned euthanasia, pushing back against the mentality that has led to thinking that euthanasia is a reasonable option, and exploring what a good death might be.” Interestingly enough, the livestream was disabled for a short time for violating Youtube’s “Community Standards.”
