Editorial

After the boxes and wrapping paper from Christmas Past had been discarded or recycled, I assumed a horizontal position on my favorite sofa, pulled the blanket up to my chin and grabbed the clicker, listening to all the television banter about the year coming to a close.

I won’t hazard a guess as to whether it achieves immortality like “grassy knoll” or “hanging chads,” but surely the phrase “bomb cyclone storm” will remain in the public consciousness of those who endured its cruelties.

I t was late December of 2020. COVID cabin fever was hitting me hard.

M any people throughout the world use the New Year holiday as a time to reflect on the previous year and make resolutions for the year ahead.

T his week could mark the most consequential development on the U.S.-Mexico border since January 2021, when President Joe Biden essentially opened the nation’s doors to millions of illegal border crossers. Depending on how court fights turn out, Title 42, the Trumpera measure that allows the U.S. government to quickly return illegal crossers to Mexico on the grounds of preventing the spread of COVID, will likely soon expire. After that, officials expect a flood of illegal crossers, all coming into the United States confident that they, like hundreds of thousands before them just this year, will be allowed to stay.

I t didn’t surprise me when, backstage at the Grand Ole Opry, Father Thomas Joseph White began telling me that while he enjoyed touring with his band the Hillbilly Thomists, which consists of musical friars, he enjoys writing more. When not playing banjo in Nashville, White is the rector of the Angelicum in Rome; the school’s most famous alumnus is Pope John Paul II. His latest book is an authoritative study of the Holy Trinity.