John M. Vella

Latest by John M. Vella in Chronicles

• In Memoriam

  March 2020

  Sir Roger Scruton: Britain's Culture Warrior

  I first heard Roger Scruton speak at the 1993 regional Philadelphia Society meeting in Dearborn, Michigan, organized to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Russell Kirk’s The Conservative Mind. Scruton spoke on the topic of “The Conservative Mind Abroad” in a soft but authoritative voice that gently drew and kept the listener’s attention. However, his professorial demeanor never got in the way of making a forceful point. This was demonstrated in 1997 at a debate in London sponsored by the Edmund Burke Society. I was invited to attend the bicentennial celebration of Burke’s death and the festivities included a debate over his continued relevance.

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• Reviews

  October 2012

  Maistre in the Dock

  In September 2010, Émile Perreau-Saussine, age 37, was rushed to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, U.K., with chest pains. The junior physician on staff misdiagnosed his condition and thus failed to prevent his death hours later of a massive heart attack.

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• Cultural Revolutions

  November 2010

  O'Donnellmania

  The upset defeat of long-time congressman and former governor Mike Castle by Christine O’Donnell in the Delaware Republican senatorial primary on September 14 revealed more about the frustrations of conservative voters with the GOP establishment than about the strengths of a long-shot Tea Party candidate.

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• Vital Signs

  February 2010

  Remaking Conservatism

  Charles Kesler, in an otherwise unremarkable essay in the Claremont Review of Books (Summer 2009), argues that an effective response to the challenges of modern liberalism requires a revolution within conservatism.

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• Vital Signs

  November 2009

  Father Abraham: Conservative?

  The bicentenary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln has seen the publication of a host of new books and magazine articles celebrating the legacy of the 16th president. Lincoln’s popularity is probably at its highest point thus far, and Honest Abe is defended by writers on both ends of the political spectrum.

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• Reviews

  May 2009

  The Moral Temper

  Fr. James Pereiro’s new history of the Victorian Church examines a much-neglected element of the Oxford Movement’s central tenets. Ethos, he contends, was the key component in the development of a complex theory of knowledge that Tractarians—named after the movement’s “Tracts for the Times”—would adopt as their own.

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• Reviews

  June 1998

  New Blood

  The modern age has known many false prophets who have challenged the moral and spiritual beliefs of the Christian faith. Although churchmen have not always been vigilant in defense of traditional religion, one institution able to resist the secularizing trends of the 19th and 20th century has been the Catholic Church.

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