The disgrace of Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, credibly accused of having for many years groomed and abused teenage boys, seminarians, and priests, sometimes with a measure of consent and sometimes without any consent at all, gives us a rare opportunity to survey the whole miserable scene as regards both the Church and what, for want of … Read more
There is a man named David Hart who runs what I once called “a smelly little blog” called Slowly Boiled Frog that lays waste to Christians who take public and aggressive stands against the gay agenda. He has come after me more than twenty times in recent years. This is how David introduced me to … Read more
What’s the connection between time and eternity? Twitter and scripture? How can we use human language to speak of divine things? It’s complicated, so it’s not surprising we sometimes get it wrong. Gaudium et Spes, a document of the Second Vatican Council, says the Church should read the signs of the times, so that “in … Read more
In George MacDonald’s At the Back of the North Wind, a child sleeping in his cozy bed at night hears the voice of the North Wind speaking to him in the appearance of a beautiful woman with dark eyes and black hair streaming in all directions. Entering through a window by Diamond’s bed, the whispering … Read more
I have attended the Novus Ordo Mass all my life. I do not believe it was necessarily a mistake to have the Mass translated into the vernacular so that people could more readily understand the words and actions. Yet I have great sympathy for people who flock to, or flee to, the traditional rite, and … Read more
Socialism never goes away. A quarter century after its collapse in Eastern Europe and Russia, and the success of market-oriented reforms elsewhere, many people once again see it as the ideal. This is true even in the Church. Not so very long ago Saint John XXIII reaffirmed the teaching of Pope Pius XI that “no Catholic … Read more
We have seen many examples of the tyrannical mindset of those who are at the forefront of this latter stage of the Sexual Revolution, led by the homosexualist movement and its political and governmental allies. We have observed the treatment by state human rights commissions of bakers, florists, and photographers who religiously object to serving … Read more
Just a few days ago, James Martin, S.J. tweeted: “Jesus says, ‘Stop judging.’… Not ‘Judge if people are sinning.’ Not ‘Judge people to correct them.’… Jesus judged others, but he was the Sinless Son of God. Unless you are, too, ‘Stop judging.’” Who is Martin fingering, and about what? Fairfax County School Board member Pat … Read more
I have just read a fascinating and, to my mind, cheerful article, by the research psychologist Robert Epstein, on why your brain is not a computer—for the simple reason that your brain does not store memories in the way that a computer does, nor does it function according to algorithms. We are not computers but … Read more
On a recent book review TV interview program called Q/A, Ross Douthat, author of To Change the Church, was asked about his own beliefs. He responded quite frankly that he was a Catholic. When asked why, Douthat replied that, as far as he could see, a divine intervention did take place in this world around … Read more
In George Herbert’s seventeenth century poem “Humilitie,” the Virtues sit on a throne to receive gifts at court from the animals who serve their masters. Humility steps down to receive the gifts the beasts present to the members of the court. The angry Lion surrenders its paw to Meekness, the fearful Hare presents her ears … Read more
It was a shocking photo. There was Jesuit James Martin with his arm around Professor Robert George of Princeton, both of them grinning ear to ear. Professor George published the photo on his Twitter feed and it appeared this beacon of orthodoxy had given his imprimatur to the heterodoxy of James Martin, who has quite … Read more
Editor’s note: The following eulogy was delivered at the funeral of Faith Whittlesey, who died at home on May 21 at the age of 79. I had the honor of working for Faith both in the Reagan White House and the U.S. Embassy in Switzerland. I admired her unreservedly and we became great friends. I … Read more
Previously in this publication I raised serious questions about whether sexual harassment is the crisis that some have alleged. The first problem—which the “#MeToo” movement and feminists in general never seem to address—is what is meant by the term. At times, they seem to conflate it with outright sexual assault; at other times it seems … Read more
This article is a continuation of the previous, written on behalf of Michael Smalanskas, the brave student at Providence College who posted a sign affirming reality: because the Catholic teaching that only a man and a woman can feasibly marry is but a plain recognition of what is biologically, physically, and anthropologically the case. We … Read more
I argue that a large part of the motivation for the recent attacks on Franciscan University of Steubenville and Christendom College is an intense dislike of anything that smacks of theological or political conservatism. Recall that Simcha Fisher and Jenn Morson recently published articles setting out complaints by various former students that their claims of … Read more
I wrote the following several weeks ago, and decided to wait on it. Meanwhile, something has happened to the young man in question, something worse by far than what I have described here. So here goes: I have just learned that the Women’s Studies Program at my old school, Providence College, does not take rape seriously. Or … Read more
As the city’s recreation director, Sheppard took an interest in the youth he encountered in his work, and also volunteered to counsel troubled boys at the reformatory, “receiving nothing for it but the satisfaction of knowing he was helping boys no one else cared about.” His idea of “help,” however, assumes the form of social … Read more
A few weeks ago, the Chronicle of Higher Education got all spun up about whether “Catholic U.’s Chaste Brand” was scaring off prospective students. Some anonymous professors were practically gleeful that the reassertion of authentic Catholicism at CUA, begun under Father David O’Connell and continued robustly under current president John Garvey, was finally shown to … Read more
We can’t know the shape of things to come with any certainty. Even so, we have duties as citizens, and our understanding of the way things are headed affects how we carry them out. That makes any given issue something to take seriously. With that in mind, perhaps the most striking tendency of the present … Read more