I don’t watch Hollywood award shows anymore, although there was a time in my life when I did. In my early college days, I would turn on the television to gape at the pre-awards red carpet glamor, and then chow on popcorn while relishing every acceptance speech over the next few hours, all the while … Read more
Pro-life America will march the Washington Mall on January 24, 2020, to protest the Supreme Court’s 1973 (Roe v. Wade) and 1992 (Planned Parenthood v. Casey) rulings to make abortion accessible without “undue burden” of law. Though January marks the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, this year the March for Life is looking ahead to … Read more
The Two Popes is not so much a picture as it is propaganda. The Netflix original follows the mode of the liberal media, presenting imagined interactions and conversations between Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis (when he was Cardinal Bergoglio) that further an agenda that is bent on denouncing the Catholic Church with slick cinematography. … Read more
My late father-in-law, Neil McCaffrey (founder of Arlington House publishers, The Conservative Book Club, etc.), remarked back in the 1960s that bishops would do well to learn something about economics, given their predilection for instructing the faithful and indeed the world in that discipline in its moral dimension. It has seemed to me for the … Read more
Last month I had the privilege and the pleasure of being a panelist during a public debate in Budapest on the thorny subject of “Christian Democracy and the Future of Europe”. I was one of five “experts” on the panel. The others came from Poland, Hungary, Germany, and England. My fellow Englishman on the panel … Read more
I was finishing my morning coffee and nothing in particular was occupying my mind. A black-capped chickadee suddenly appeared before my eyes, walking alongside our front yard maple tree. It was busy, no doubt looking for food. At that moment it seemed to be operating with more purpose than I was. This tiny little oviparous … Read more
Fearing that New Hampshire’s Saint Anselm College is at risk of losing its Catholic identity, and that their voices will be silenced, members of the order of Benedictine monks of Saint Anselm Abbey—the monastic order that founded the college—have filed a lawsuit against Saint Anselm’s Board of Trustees. The lawsuit, filed on November 27th in Hillsborough … Read more
Some years ago, I served at a parish with a priest—let me call him Father Micawber—who frequently asked me to preach. It seems he was satisfied with my homilies, with a single exception. “You should be more upbeat,” he told me. “We want people to leave Mass happier than when they came in the door.” … Read more
The Trump administration’s decision to kill Iranian general Qasem Soleimani eliminated a longtime opponent of American interests in the Middle East, but also raised questions about how the strike integrates with the United States’ support for religious minorities in the volatile region. President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have prioritized … Read more
Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the January 1991 print edition of Crisis Magazine. Nothing is deader than dead politics, we have been told. Why, then, revive the political essays of the philosopher, polemicist, and Catholic publicist Orestes Brownson (1803-1897)? Because the questions raised by Brownson confront us still. The “American Idea,” much discussed … Read more
“Children are the future of the Church.” How often are such truisms used to explain the extensive focus on a single demographic group within a parish? From youth ministry to religious education to Catholic schools, most Catholic parishes direct a large amount of their limited resources toward young people. After all, if our children fall … Read more
Now billed as “The Slap Seen ’round the World,” the video footage of the Holy Father’s encounter with an apparently over-zealous admirer at St. Peter’s Square on New Year’s Eve has gone viral. In a pontificate that has seen the Catholic world become deeply polarized over the style, personality, and actions of the Church’s current … Read more
On January 3, leaders of the United Methodist Church (UMC) announced plans to split into two denominations. This division of the third-largest church in the United States (after the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention) is an attempt to resolve a years-long, contentious battle over sexual ethics, particularly homosexuality. According to the announcement, Methodist … Read more
It was Friday the 13th of December, and nothing unlucky had happened yet. Or so I thought, idly scrolling through the Catholic news—until my eyes landed on a startling headline from Crux. “Pope calls idea of declaring Mary co-redemptrix ‘foolishness’ ” ran the title of the piece. On closer inspection, it turned out that in his Spanish-language homily for … Read more
Author and political scientist Darrell West is deeply concerned about the current climate in the United States. “Societal tensions have metastasized into a dangerous tribalism that seriously threatens U.S. democracy,” he warns. “Unless people can bridge these divisions and forge a new path forward, it will be impossible to work together, maintain a functioning democracy, … Read more
In celebrating the centenary of the consecration and dedication to God of the Cathedral of Saints Mary and Joseph, we are in a sense celebrating the 100th anniversary of our cathedral’s “baptism”. At our own baptism we are anointed with sacred chrism and thereby consecrated or set apart for the glory of God and to … Read more
We live in a culture that says you can become—and, in fact, are— whatever you think you are, so few people dare question the transgender person’s idea of reality. Of course, it’s possible that nature may in some rare instances “cross-wire” a male by feminizing his brain before birth so he feels more like a … Read more
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. I thought often of these first lines from Genesis while crossing the North Atlantic two weeks … Read more
What are your pronouns? How do you self-identify? As recently as when I was in college, earlier this young century, those two questions would have elicited confusion, if not mockery. Now, they are increasingly part of the grammar of our introductions to others. During an LGBTQ town hall this past fall, Sen. Kamala Harris stated … Read more
The purpose of the modern critique of Catholic sexual morality is not to redefine sexual ethics but to un-moralize (de-moralize?) all forms of sexual expression, i.e., to give our sexual desires free rein unencumbered by guilt or responsibility. In an age where our goodness is determined by feelings of goodness about ourselves, this makes perfect … Read more