It is impossible these days to be a university professor and not be accused of offending someone. Offensiveness is now regarded as a synonym for disagreement. I recall presenting to my class a distinction that psychologist Abraham Maslow made concerning two types of cognition. “Deficiency cognition” (D-cognition) occurs when an object is experienced partially or … Read more
Like most fairy tales, the story of Rumpelstiltskin has an undercurrent of horror. If it’s been awhile, here’s a refresher: an arrogant father, seeking esteem in the eyes of the king, boasts that his daughter can spin straw into gold. With this lie, the unnamed daughter is discarded from one pair of arms to another, neither … Read more
Last week, Leila Lawler and Leila Miller co-authored an article for Crisis Magazine entitled Catholic Men, Rise Up and Fight. This exhortation is a Cri de Coeur from women who are sick of what’s going on in their Church, and they are begging men to address the problem. Here is one man’s response. Mesdames Lawler … Read more
Last week, Hans Küng, the king of the dissident German Catholic theologians, met his maker. At the time, I tweeted, “King Küng meets God-zilla.” In doing so, I had no intention of comparing either Hans Küng to a giant gorilla nor the Almighty to a giant lizard. It just seemed too juicy a dad-joke to … Read more
What is love? That is an enduring question. Moreover, we hear of the need to “love” all the time—from our media, from our priests, from our Holy Father. But what is love? Our answer of what love is has deeply dire consequences. Sadly, most people who promote love promote the Satanic counterfeit of love. Love … Read more
Last November, Pope Francis, for the first time, called China’s Muslim Uighurs a “persecuted” people, something human rights activists have been urging him to do for years. However, during his solemn Urbi et Orbi Easter blessing on Easter Sunday, Francis snubbed the Uighurs as he carefully omitted any reference to those suffering human rights abuses … 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
Sophocles is probably the greatest dramatist in the history of civilization, with the obvious exception of Shakespeare. He lived for ninety years, his life spanning almost the entirety of the fifth century B.C., from 496 to 406. During his long life, which seems to have been spent entirely in Athens, he witnessed both the rise … Read more
The earth shook, and the rocks were split; the tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. —Matthew 27:51-53 West was a materialist, believing in no soul and attributing all … Read more
The statement “To Awaken Conscience” on so-called “abortion tainted” vaccines was meant to propose an ideal, not give arguments. I signed it because I agree with that ideal. But a philosopher should have reasons too, and here I wish to give them. These reasons also explain why I reject the statement recently offered by some … Read more
A home is not the same as a house. You can live or stay in a house and it is not a home. You can possibly live in a house many years and yet it never becomes a home. Home, the ancient expression goes, is where the heart is. While that might have become rather … Read more
When I logged into Twitter on Easter Monday morning, I was pleasantly surprised. As anyone who has spent time on Twitter knows, timelines related to Catholicism or politics (as mine is) tend to lean strongly negative. Yet on Easter Monday morning, I was flooded with tweets celebrating new members of the Catholic Church. It was … Read more
One of the earliest memories I have of Franciscan University, which is the school in Steubenville, Ohio where I teach, took place one evening years ago while leaving my office to go home. Fr. Benedict Groeschel, a wise and holy priest who founded the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, and who himself went home (to … Read more
We’ve been writing for years about the crisis of manhood, and that crisis has come to a head within the past year, particularly in the Catholic Church. Now we write to call our men to be what God created them to be. The faithful have been abused through a year of cancelled Masses, locked churches, … Read more
To celebrate Easter properly, we should probably recall Luca Signorelli’s 1499 masterpiece The Sermon and Deeds of the Anti-Christ. It now hangs in the Chapel of San Brizio in Orvieto. Upon first glance, it appears that Christ stands in the foreground. Then the observer realizes that it is not Christ at all. It is an … Read more
Recently, Pope Francis declared that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the one “to whom Jesus entrusted us, all of us; but as a Mother, not as goddess, not as co-redeemer (non come dea, non come corredentrice): as Mother.” This comment generated much controversy in the Catholic world since one of Mary’s traditional titles is “Co-Redemptrix.” So … Read more
I grew up near Los Angeles and now I live in Washington, D.C. So I have had my fair share of city experiences. Last year, I was on the Washington metro with a friend when a fight broke out, and we were caught in the middle. I’ve been on a train where two men have … Read more
For those who use as their calendar that great barometer of the year, i.e., the seasonal sales displays in retail stores and supermarkets, the passing of February’s red hearts for St. Valentine’s Day (or green shamrocks a month later for St. Patrick’s) makes way for Easter baskets and egg coloring kits. Indeed, for those of … Read more
This may shock you, but most mass shooters are not white. The American Left, including the Catholic political Left, hold onto certain narratives as if their lives depended on it. They hold on so tightly their knuckles—if you’ll pardon the expression—turn white. Hardly any narrative seems so important to them right now as “most mass … Read more
When faced with Christian slogans like “Jesus died to save you from your sins” or liturgical commonplaces like “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” the 21st century twenty-something with virtually no understanding of Christianity might well ask, “What does the execution of a criminal two thousand years ago … Read more