A few years ago, as Obamacare was being put in place, Republican governor John Kasich of Ohio suggested that the Christian obligation to assist the poor was a reason for expanding Medicaid in the state. Catholic social teaching does indeed make clear that the state has a role in assisting the needy, but only—in line … Read more
It is one of the most remarkable churches in all the world, in all of human history. Begun in 1892 and not expected to be finished until 2030, La Sagrada Familia is Antonio Gaudi’s masterpiece. It is odd and wonderful to behold, its barrel-shaped spires springing up all around, its soaring interior arches offering glory … Read more
The harrowing visions of Lucia de Jesus dos Santos and her two cousins in Fatima in 1917, and the famous secrets entrusted to the three seers by the Blessed Virgin Mary, have long been the subject of speculation and controversy, which in recent years seem to have reached a fever pitch. Following the revelation of … Read more
I’m genuinely unsure whether Joel Osteen deserved the enormous flak he took this week over his reluctance to open his mega-church to flood victims in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. As of the writing of this article, reports say that Lakewood church is now open and offering shelter to flood victims. As of Monday, though, … Read more
In the famous speech from Shakespeare’s As You Like It that begins “All the world’s a stage, / And all the men and women merely players,” the melancholic Jaques laments the passage of time in the human pilgrimage as a series of sad events that perpetuate the same mood of life’s dreariness that persists from … Read more
Poverty fell off a cliff after the Second World War. It fell like a stone, including for American blacks. The economy was booming and everyone benefited. The poverty rate dropped from 35 percent in 1950 to less than 20 percent when President Lyndon Johnson, nonetheless, announced his War on Poverty. By the time the War … Read more
C. S. Lewis was a university professor, and knew about the wheels within wheels of committees, with their informal “rings” that use the official bodies and their meetings to get done what they want, but that accomplish very little of the real work of the university, which is intellectual and spiritual. So it is in That … Read more
Few are the stories that are vouched for by a lead sentence alone. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. Call me Ishmael. He was born with … Read more
The first and perhaps most interesting thing about hunger in America is that the US government no longer measures it. Many years ago, the feds stopped measuring hunger because experts could not agree on who might qualify and very likely the number who qualified was vanishingly small. The US Department of Agriculture went to the … Read more
During the last year of my employment at Nameless College, whose sharp turn away from its Catholic identity and its commitment to the humanities came as a shock to my foolish optimism, I learned of what Elizabeth Corey has shrewdly called “The First Church of Intersectionality.” You must understand, my sane and ordinary readers, that … Read more
What is the best form of government? The question seems pointless. Life is complicated, and a system that worked well then and there may work badly here and now. That is one reason the Catechism tells us that “The diversity of political regimes is morally acceptable, provided they serve the legitimate good of the communities … Read more
The case of Charlie Gard, the British baby afflicted with the rare mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome who a London hospital would not discharge to his parents so they could take him to the U.S. for experimental treatment, brought together a number of increasingly portentous trends and realities that have come to define our age. The … Read more
My imaginary sparring partner Mike has come back with some trepidation, because he never wanted to be maneuvered into saying that he wants to allow the killing of a weak and innocent human being. But now he speaks the language of “realism.” I have learned, and sometimes to my chagrin, that the Church is almost … Read more
Jesuit Antonio Spadaro and Protestant Marcelo Figueroa recently published what can only be described as a diatribe against my friends and me. It was highly personal because it was directed right at a coalition of believers who have banded together to advance what a previous pope referred to as a Culture of Life. The column … Read more
“As a kid I was always sad and always trying to keep everyone else happy. I felt like I had to be one person when I was with my dad and another when I was with my mom.” So says an anonymous child of divorce, describing how her parents’ divorce impacted her childhood. She is … Read more
Though ice cold logic was ever his bread and butter, Mr. Sherlock Holmes had a talent and taste for histrionics. While skilled as an actor, as “The Sign of Four” and “A Scandal in Bohemia” proves, Holmes was also a dramatist, as demonstrated in “The Naval Treaty” and “The Six Napoleons.” The great consulting detective … Read more
Traditionally, Catholics have viewed Luther as a heresiarch, and the Lutheran break from Rome as a religious and civilizational catastrophe. More recently, in line with current ecumenical and pastoral initiatives, that view has softened. The softening has been quite noticeable during the current pontificate. The pope recently took part in a joint liturgy with the … Read more
Last Friday the leftwing blogosphere lost its mind over the appointment of a conservative Christian woman to a position in the Trump Administration, in this case, the US Agency for International Development (USAID).* This young woman is a mother who has stayed at home with her kids for the past several years, though before that … Read more
I’ve argued in previous columns that at bottom the problem of the left is a lack of integrity and that it’s hard to find a prominent leftist who truly exhibits integrity—at least in his assessments of politics and public affairs. I’ve also mentioned the obvious inconsistencies in the positions taken by the left, and the … Read more
You may never have heard of the website Guidestar. It is an invaluable tool for those seeking information on nonprofits, everything from the Ford Foundation to your local pro-life group, provided they have nonprofit status with the federal government. All nonprofits are listed at Guidestar. Potential donors can peruse the tax returns of these nonprofits … Read more