I wouldn’t have taken a more than average interest in Christopher Columbus if ill-informed and sometimes ill-intentioned people hadn’t made it necessary. Fairfax County, Virginia, where I’ve lived for more than thirty-five years, abolished Columbus Day in 2020 as a paid holiday, but schools are closed today anyway – to celebrate “Indigenous Peoples’ Day.” The state legislature did the same for all of Virginia, as have other states, in effect replacing our Western Christian heritage with – frankly – they know not what. Now, Columbus, like all of us, was an imperfect human being. But unlike most of us, he was also a great human being, who carried out one of the most daring feats in history, which remains of central importance to the Americas, the Church, and the whole world. The more you know about him, the clearer that becomes.
It’s a symptom of our current moment that few people bother to learn – or teach – about him, beyond the blanket condemnations of Columbus as the origin of virtually everything bad that’s happened in the Americas since 1492. (Somehow, by the same illogic, he gets no credit for the good things that have happened on these shores.) And
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