The Church today has a troubled relation to the academy and media. The reasons are quite basic. Secular intellectual authorities believe they stand for a way of understanding the world, free unprejudiced inquiry carried on by disinterested professionals, that is sufficient as well as uniquely correct. The Church considers neutral secular expertise insufficient, since the … Read more
Next week Washington DC will be treated to the arrival of a pro-life Catholic who is also a member of the British royal family. How is that possible? Nicholas Windsor gave up his place in line to the British throne when he converted to the Catholic Church in 2001. He became “the first male blood … Read more
Among American conservatives it seems to be common knowledge now that marriage is on the rocks. According to the Pew Research Center, just over half of American adults 18 and older are now married. This is a record low, and most indicators suggest that marriage is continuing to decline. In many demographics, co-habitation and illegitimacy … Read more
In the last fortnight the Australian people elected a new government under the leadership of Tony Abbott, a pro-family Catholic and constitutional monarchist. He has a wife called Margaret and daughters Louise, Bridget and Frances. Abbott was educated at St. Ignatius College, Riverview, the University of Sydney and Oxford University. Riverview is the most prestigious … Read more
A few weeks ago, readers of the New York Post were confronted with a story whose sensational title was characteristic of the tabloid: “I’m a Guy Again! ABC newsman who switched genders wants to switch back.” Replete with pictures of Don Ennis both as a woman and a man, the article informed readers that the … Read more
America is a pro-marriage country. After debating the value of matrimony for several decades, Americans have come down firmly in favor of tying the knot. Cue the wedding bells. Some readers may be scratching their heads at this point. That is understandable. No reasonable person could claim that the institution of marriage is healthy in … Read more
In an old (1950) monograph entitled The Truth about the Inquisition, Dr. John A. O’Brien, a Notre Dame history professor of the time, provides a brief but interesting exposé of the Albigensian heresy. Few people recall that that almost maniacal rebellion against Catholic teaching and, for that matter, commonsensical and civilized living was the trigger … Read more
The mayor of San Antonio glares down at the electrician, who is bidding for a contract to wire some new public offices. “Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Roman Catholic Church?” The electrician looks puzzled, but his assistant Carlos, a man with more experience in political affairs, speaks up. … Read more
Conservationists understand the culling of a population is sometimes necessary, particularly when the habitat can no longer sustain the species. Nature steps in, sometimes man, and helps the species by killing some of its members. And even if local populations sometimes need culling, biologists measure the success of a species by its growth and argue … Read more
In a recent piece published in Crisis I commented on the features of our public life that led the Supreme Court to assert that support for the natural definition of marriage is simply an attempt to harm people. One reader wrote to say he found the piece both convincing and horrific. He noted that it … Read more
Two recent court cases illustrate the incoherence and remarkable intolerance of “liberal” views regarding conscience. One involves the bottomless pockets of the atheist Michael Newdow, who most recently joined several plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the U.S. Treasury Department demanding the words “In God We Trust” be scrubbed from U.S. currency. Newdow advocates what Richard … Read more
The scene is from C. S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength. The callow young sociology professor, Mark Studdock, an atheist and a social climber, has been detained in a cubicle deliberately fashioned with odd annoying angles and not-quite-right pictures on the wall. His detainers aim to break down in him any last sense of the inner … Read more
Many faithful Catholics know that for decades the U.S. bishops conference and its bureaucratic arm have often been criticized for their statements about public questions and issues. The statements have at times seemed to line up too readily with politically liberal positions, been overly specific, too focused on public policy solutions, and unduly restrictive of … Read more
Football is a deeply offensive sport. It is violent and triumphalist, and teaches young children that however nicely they play the game, winning still matters. More terrible still, a football team is a roiling cauldron of unvarnished masculinity. Hardly anyone even pretends to want women on the field. Football is an affront to everything progressives … Read more
St. John’s University is back in the news following an investigation into possible financial improprieties involving the former president of the university and another administrator with ties to Cecilia Chang, a dean who was accused of fraud. A statement released by the University on August 24th, concluded that although “there were errors in judgment” by … Read more
Miley Cyrus’s gyrations on the Video Music Awards are hardly new. In fact, Miley is getting whupped by the black community for a white performer once more taking a cultural artifact from the black experience. Some have gone so far as to call Miley racist for taking on-stage twerking into the white mainstream. You probably … Read more
Christianity came to Japan in 1549. The Land of the Rising Sun must have been ready to hear the good news when St Francis Xavier first set foot on its shores. By the time he left, just two years later, there were three thousand Japanese Christians. Over the next forty years that number increased to … Read more
Lear’s loyal servant Kent advises the king to “see better,” when Lear unjustly banishes his beloved daughter Cordelia for not flattering him with the bombast of her sisters proclaiming they love their father “Dearer than eyesight, space and liberty./ Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare,/ No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, … Read more
Last year, L’Eglise de Notre Dame de l’Assumption, in the old fishing port of Arichat, Nova Scotia, celebrated its 175th anniversary. Its twin spires overlook the bay where John Paul Jones, to Americans a hero but to loyal Canadians a pirate and a traitor, once trained his guns, and sure enough, near the corner of … Read more
Secular liberalism is at odds with Catholicism. The point seemed obvious to most people until the postwar period, when the thought took hold that an essentially harmonious relationship could be established that would draw on the American model. America, it seemed, was different from Europe with its long tradition of statism and anti-clericalism. It rejected … Read more