At first glance, the Solemnity of Corpus Christi seems primarily an internal church feast. However, once upon a time (especially when societies were more religiously homogenous) that internal faith found external expression in public processions with the Eucharist. In some places (e.g., Poland), public expression was never lost; in others, like the United States, it … 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
It’s springtime, and fairness is in the air. And we’re choking on it. Everywhere we turn, fairness. Wherever so-called microaggressions and cultural appropriation are condemned or when the University of California bans phrases like “land of opportunity,” it is done in the name of fairness. #LoveWins or #MeToo—fairness. Open borders—fairness. Like a thirsty man at … Read more
Classicist and military historian Victor Davis Hanson’s extended essay and memoir, Mexifornia: A State of Becoming, has aged well since it’s publication in 2003, when it was met with significant criticism from both the Left and the economic-libertarian Right, who, according to Hanson, accused him of being a racist, nativist, and isolationist. Its grave concerns, … Read more
A recent article in The Wall Street Journal brought home just how our attitudes about sexual relationships have become dangerously trivial and mechanical. It showed how we have lost the sense of decency, morality, and shame. The article reported on new apps that allow those who engage in casual relationships to tell each other what … Read more
“Liverpool star Mohamed Salah’s unapologetic Muslim faith sends extraordinary message.” That’s the headline on an NBC story about the Egyptian sports star who plays for the Liverpool soccer club. Salah prays before each game and prostrates himself in prayer after every goal he scores. He is also popular with fans, contributes to charities and is … Read more
An article penned recently from The Eternal City—“Superheroes Saving Us from Ourselves”—contends that the latest Avengers film, Infinity War, reaffirms a sound understanding of good and evil. The author gives the film a positive review for being “a good story” that has “good good guys and good bad guys,” concluding that bringing one’s children to … Read more
The doctrine of the Trinity is a mystery that has been the subject of debate, controversy, and misunderstanding for two millennia. Part of the difficulty is that although traces of the Trinity run throughout the warp and woof of Scripture, God’s holy Word contains nothing explicit about it. But perhaps our larger problem is that … 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
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned… Almost one hundred years ago the Irish poet W.B. Yeats wrote The Second Coming. It is a strange nightmarish poem. It tells of events that are both seen … Read more
The French poet and philosopher Charles Péguy died in September, 1914 with a bullet through his head. He had anticipated the war that took his life—some say he even welcomed it, though his poetry resists that claim. He was a polemicist to the core and at odds with his temporal milieu, which was a modernity … 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
Editor’s note: The following document is a pastoral letter issued May 13 by the bishops of Kazakhstan on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the encyclical Humanae Vitae. Praised be Our Lord Jesus Christ! Dear brothers and sisters in Christ! The current year is marked by the memorable event of the 50th anniversary of … Read more
I dare say that most people who have read history would like to think that if they had been present at some pivotal point in history, they would have chosen the right side—with the Allies and against the Axis, with Wilberforce and against the slave traders, with the Romans and against the child-sacrificing Carthaginians. If … Read more
On July 17, 1918, an event occurred that clarified the meaning of the subsequent century of Communist revolutions. Czar Nicholas, his wife Alexandra, their five comely children, and a few steadfast friends were shot, stabbed, and bludgeoned to death in a basement in the Ural Mountains. The purge was executed by a vanguard of the … 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
Lavrentiy Beria, the infamous head of the Soviet secret police created his own realities in his service to the Communist Party. He boasted to Joseph Stalin: “Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime.” Beria did not allow facts to disrupt the process leading to his murderous goals. Fairfax County (Virginia) law enforcement is conducting a … Read more
The German bishops’ conference is hardly alone in exploiting, for “pastoral” reasons, the implications of Amoris Laetitia’s (AL) betrayal of objective moral truth. At the same time, the larger context of its recent decisions to admit select Lutherans, and select divorced and “remarried” Catholics, to Holy Communion seems to point also to a source of … Read more
The furor has died down around revelations in late March that a professor of religious studies at the Jesuit College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, opined in an article that Jesus may have had sexual fantasies about his Father while being crucified. Dr. Tat-Siong Benny Lew, Class of 1956 Professor in New Testament … Read more
Pentecost celebrates the birth of the Church with the coming of the Holy Spirit in fulfillment of Jesus’s promise to his disciples. Yet, few doctrines of the Church are as misunderstood as that of the Holy Spirit. I suspect this is partly due to the fuzzy image connoted by a name that conjures up notions … Read more