It is hard to write about the victims of gender ideology, radical feminism, and the sexual revolution. After all, they are victims. But sometimes these victims take public positions that will lead others into the same type of tragic victimhood. And so today I write about two victims. It is also challenging to write about … Read more
The Fourth of July weekend in Chicago had more to do with firearms than fireworks, with 49 shootings, 60 victims, and 14 fatalities. A 10-year-old girl was killed in her home by a stray bullet, shot through the head. A toddler was killed in his car seat by another stray bullet, shot through the chest. … Read more
I have been reading the works of Saint Hildegard (1098–1179), the visionary mystic, naturalist, scriptural exegete, artist, and musical composer. In one of his weekly audiences, Pope Benedict XVI recommended her to us for her remarkable meditations upon the Word made flesh, which made manifest what she called the “greenness” of the Father’s power, and … Read more
There is no question that the death of George Floyd is highly questionable. The shocking and shameful insurgencies erupting in cities across the country propose that the answer is rooted in an engrained American racism. That response, too, is highly questionable. In a sense, the reaction is as disturbing as the incident itself. As fire … Read more
Mercy and justice are difficult to balance in human affairs, and even more difficult can be the belief in their balance in the God from Whom we beg for the one while trembling in fear of the other. These are days when it is not difficult to believe we are feeling the heavy hand of … Read more
In February, I read a novel for a men’s book club (back then, we still had the good fortune to be able to meet for normal social interactions; March’s meeting got canceled). The novel was Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory, which I had never read, and had always reproached myself for not having … Read more
On Ash Wednesday, the White House released a statement from President Trump. “For Catholics and many other Christians,” it reads, “Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Lenten season that concludes with the joyful celebration of Easter Sunday. Today, millions of Christians will be marked on their foreheads with the sign of the cross. The … Read more
Fr. Nick VanDenBroeke got into hot water recently for a homily he delivered on January 5, which is Immigration Sunday in his diocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. In the homily, he called for restrictions on Muslim immigration, saying that “Islam is the greatest threat in the world both to Christianity and to America … … Read more
Mark Joseph Stern, the resident LGBT scold at Slate magazine, is having a hissy fit over pronouns. Stern complains that a “transgender” pedophile in federal custody was not allowed to be called by his preferred pronouns. The case revolves around a man named Norman Varner, who, in 2012, was found to have sexual images of … 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
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
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
They say the homosexual scenes in the new Elton John biopic are the most titillating ever in a mainstream movie. They make Brokeback Mountain look like Bringing Up Baby. Less discussed, perhaps, is the fact that ordinary Catholic pew-sitters paid for it via their Peter’s Pence donations to the Pope. The cash came from a … Read more
To look at our diocese, you might assume it’s on the liberal side. Located in Northern Virginia and established in 1974, most of the newer churches (and there are many of them) are “in the round.” You know the ones—they look like spaceships. Needless to say, these triumphs of modern ecclesial architecture generally exclude altar … Read more
Have you ever dared to go inside one of those Halloween outlets that crop up a month before October 31? Besides high-priced trash, these shops offer an insight into what Dante might have conceived for our times in his Inferno, portraying the horrors and monstrosities that are housed in the heart of our society with … Read more
Attorney General William Barr was excoriated by the mainstream press and the social media offenderati for his speech at the (Roman Catholic) University of Notre Dame last week. Yet the A.G. was simply spelling out the reality of life in modern America: here is what we have lost, here are the reasons why, and here’s what’s happening as … Read more
This past June I was in the Munich area for four days, giving a public lecture on Evangelical Catholicism and doing a lot of media interviews. My hosts were exceptionally gracious, but it was also obvious that the Catholic Church in what was once Germany’s most intensely Catholic region is in terrible shape. The numbers … Read more
By their own admission, the United Nations plan to impose abortion—which it calls “reproductive health”—on the whole world. It’s a project 25 years in the making, beginning no later than 1994 at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo. (It was here that Catholics and Evangelicals were awakened by Pope St. John Paul … Read more
Support for large-scale immigration has risen dramatically in America over the past 25 years, especially among Democrats and younger people. Attitudes among Republicans and older folks have remained more stable, although they have drifted somewhat in line with the general trend. What’s striking is that the widening gap between Republicans and Democrats on this issue … Read more
