Paul Kengor stories, Page 7

Fifty years ago, Sept. 20, 1969, a Polish cardinal unknown to Americans and people in our region quietly slipped into historic St. Stanislaw Kostka Church in Pittsburgh’s Strip District. The kneeler where Cardinal Karol Wojtyla paused to pray is now marked at that church. It commemorates not just a Polish...

What’s happening right now in Hong Kong is potentially very significant, albeit difficult to understand. First, the background: On July 1, 1997, Hong Kong reverted from British colonial rule to Chinese control. Britain preferred to grant full independence, but the Chinese demanded Hong Kong back. Even then, communist China promised...

Joseph G. Harrilla grew up in Sandy Lake, Pa., in the 1950s. His hero was GI Joe. He watched movies like “The Sands of Iwo Jima.” When Vietnam came, Joe wanted to get there as quickly as possible. His first image upon arrival were naked dead bodies of Vietnamese. He...

Our nation yet again finds itself in a dreadful news cycle of sickening tragedy — namely, mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. The tragedy is exacerbated by politicians and pundits playing the blame game. This time, in August 2019, we have various sources blaming President Trump, as...

I sit in my car in a Starbucks parking lot. It’s a new Starbucks, a large lot, drive- thru. I wait while my daughter takes a music lesson down the road. The scene at the drive-thru strikes me. I’m dumbstruck by cars whizzing in at 30 mph with 40 yards to...

“I went to a quilt guild meeting today and discovered that even quilting has been politicized.” That’s an email I received from a friend last October. “It’s purely political,” she continued. “The state quilt guild was touting a traveling quilt show called ‘Threads of Resistance.’ I’ll let you guess what...

I wrote a few weeks ago about one of the major Supreme Court decisions due up in the current term — the Bladensburg cross case, in which secularists demanded the tearing down of a large cross that serves as the centerpiece of a veterans’ memorial in Bladensburg, Md., erected in...

The media loves anniversaries. As someone who writes on history, I appreciate that. But it’s funny, and often frustrating, which anniversaries get missed. The world marked important anniversaries over the past week and a half. There was the 30th anniversary of Tiananmen Square, where hundreds if not thousands of Chinese...

Several years ago, for Memorial Day 2013, I wrote in this space about the five Bailey brothers of World War II. This year, I’m probably writing about them for the last time. Yes, there were no less than five Baileys who served in the war. That fact is known to...

One of the major Supreme Court decisions we’ll soon hear about is the Bladensburg cross case. This is the case where secularists are demanding the removal of a large cross that serves as the centerpiece of a veterans’ memorial in Bladensburg, Md. The “Peace Cross” was erected in 1925 by...

Last week, I joined a packed auditorium in Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Science Center for the debut of a fascinating new documentary, “Burden of Genius.” The subject is Dr. Thomas Starzl, pioneer of organ transplantation, who pursued that revolution in medicine at Presbyterian University Hospital and Children’s Hospital, which were connected together...

Picture an elderly British man opening his newspaper and sharing this story with his wife: “A 52-year-old woman is guilty of raping two other women at a facility in West Yorkshire. Claiming to be suffering from erectile dysfunction, she assaulted the two women.” The gentleman scratches his head and says...

“President Trump has proved himself adroit at creating villains to serve as his political foils,” states The New York Times. “In his State of the Union address, he introduced a new one: socialists. … Mr. Trump chose to introduce the socialist menace in perhaps the highest-profile setting available.” “Yet,” sniffs...

“You’ve got to get on Twitter!” a former student told me recently. “It’s where everything is happening.” Well, I’m not on Twitter. I do, however, have a Twitter account. I don’t know what it is, where it is or how to access it. I want nothing to do with it....