There’s a growing consensus on the Left regarding religious exemptions: namely, that they’re absurd. “Dump COVID vaccine religious exemptions—there is no Church of Moderna Disbelievers,” declares the editorial board at the Los Angeles Times. There have been similar op-eds at MSNBC and Wired. But it’s not just frustration with resistance to the vaccine mandates. In … Read more
“I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence.” So reveals the main character of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Black Cat,” about a man who plunges ever deeper … Read more
It’s not hard to be depressed if you’re a conservative Catholic in 2021 America. That’s especially the case if, like me, you marvel at a country that seems to have radically changed in just a single generation. If a drag queen had shown up at my public elementary school in suburban Northern Virginia in the … Read more
The Washington Post recently published an op-ed by Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco defending the many Catholic bishops who have publicly considered barring pro-choice Catholic politicians from the Eucharist. But Archbishop Cordileone went a step further: he declared his support for the recent anti-abortion legislation in Texas, including praising the Lone Star State for … Read more
Many baseball fans have been alarmed, if not disgusted, by recent news regarding Los Angeles Dodgers star pitcher Trevor Bauer, who is under investigation for allegations of sexual assault. According to the accuser, Bauer physically and sexually assaulted her on two separate occasions, including while she was unconscious. As troubling as such a story is … Read more
Mainstream corporate media have been all over a recent U.S. Census Bureau report noting that Americans identifying as white have declined in numbers for the first time on record, while the Hispanic and Asian populations experienced significant growth in the past decade. Though this has, of course, provoked many predictable commentaries on race in America … Read more
How do we ensure our Catholic faith is successfully embraced by the next generation? That is one of the most crucial and vexing questions facing American Catholics in a time of declining church membership and attendance. A poll from last year found that more than a third of young Catholics planned to attend Mass less … Read more
American Catholics are really excited about Britney Spears’ announcement on Instagram that she is “Catholic now.” An article on the website ChurchPOP noted: “Whether or not Spears’ announcement is serious, let us continue to pray for her. Our Lady of the Rosary, please pray for Britney Spears!” Catholic social media influencer Lizzie Reezay of the … Read more
Some anti-Catholic myths just refuse to die. Take, for example, those about the medieval Church popularized in contemporary secular history books (often influenced by older Protestant narratives and analysis). Medieval Catholicism, so we are told, was a time of great biblical illiteracy; it was a time when man’s effort counted more than divine grace; it … Read more
Can a faithful Catholic also be a loyal patriot? How far may a Catholic go along with a political regime which actively seeks to attack and destroy his mother Church? Are there redlines at which a Catholic, even if he loves his native land, must firmly plant his feet and declare brazenly, “I will not … Read more
Often, prophecies come from the most unexpected of places: a talking donkey, an old man in the Jewish temple, three poor Portuguese children. One can add to that list a prominent Southern Presbyterian theologian, Confederate army chaplain, and virulent anti-Catholic by the name of Robert Lewis Dabney. For it was Dabney who discerned (and feared) … Read more
Few boys enjoy the benefit of being raised by the kind of man’s man who was my father. He was a veteran who served as a U.S. Army medic; a second-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do; and an exemplary athlete with trophies from baseball, softball, tennis, and billiards. He was tough as nails: he … Read more
Recently, I heard a commercial on the radio for Tommy Hilfiger that sang panegyrics about community. “I want to see a future where all communities work together in unity,” one voice declares. “Community means everything to me. Community changed my life,” says another. “I believe that if we get to know our neighbors, we will … Read more
Eccentricity, says Ambrose Bierce in his Devil’s Dictionary, is “a method of distinction so cheap that fools employ it to accentuate their incapacity.” If you’re looking for fools, and want to observe them accentuating their incapacity, you need look no further than contemporary sexual progressivists. Though, I must warn you, you may not know whether … Read more
Perhaps I was wrong. Just a few weeks ago, right after the presidential inauguration, one of my wife’s close friends, another parent in our homeschooling co-op, expressed her fear that homeschooling is likely to come under greater scrutiny with the new administration. I shook my head in dissent. Sure, I acknowledged, there are some, particularly … Read more
“To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.” So wrote Edmund Burke, the Anglo-Irish Protestant statesman whose Reflections on the Revolution in France is considered one of the finest political treatises of modern conservatism. Perhaps Burke’s sentiment seems overly simplistic—of course we will like things that are likeable. Yet it is … Read more
Liberty is enshrined as the greatest good of the American political experiment. Its primacy is codified in our founding political documents, anthemized in our patriotic music, and honored in political speeches, legal rulings, and newspaper editorials. “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation,” wrote the Supreme Court majority in its 1943 ruling, … Read more
The Christmas decorations came out early this year. Immediately after Halloween, they began popping up in neighborhoods and strip malls. The justification was 2020—in a year of manifold chaos and distemper defined by the Coronavirus, racial strife, and contentious elections, putting up the decorations early was a cathartic way to bring out those good “Christmas … Read more
At the beginning of the 2005 conclave, Pope Benedict XVI preached a now-famous homily condemning what he called the “dictatorship of relativism.” The newly-elected pontiff warned: “We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one’s own ego and desires.” Benedict’s words elicited … Read more
Joe Biden, the self-declared President-Elect, is widely portrayed by the media as a “good Catholic” for his liberal position on immigration, with expectations that he will reverse many of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies once he takes office. “Biden has vowed to reverse limits on temporary workers, loosen visa restrictions on international students, halt border … Read more
