Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago is all for clarity. It has been a consistent theme, as when in September of 2017 he issued a decree banning guns in all parishes, schools and other facilities across the archdiocese “so there would be absolute clarity on our position.” His official statement put “clarity” in italics. When he … Read more
While reading a recent Wall Street Journal column by Peggy Noonan calling for a revival of the American gentleman, I remembered an old episode of The Simpsons. They’re on the couch watching a public television fundraiser. Garrison Keillor reads a bit of Prairie Home Companion to the obliging laughter and applause from the studio audience. … Read more
Lent, the penitential season of prayer, self-examination, and repentance prepares us for the celebration of Easter and our heart’s deepest desire: an encounter with the risen Lord. Few songs convey that longing like Paul Baloche’s Open the Eyes of My Heart. Over half of the lyrics consist of the title appeal, followed by the reason: … Read more
Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Protestants are spending their Sunday mornings in football size stadiums. Not for sports, but to listen to their ministers preach the “Gospel of Success.” This new twist on the holy gospels renders the revelation of Our Lord as a guarantee of prosperity, good fortune, and freedom from pain … Read more
Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty was a hero of the Cold War, persecuted by communists and ultimately abandoned by his Church. Beginning in 1956, after Red Army tanks rolled into Hungary, Mindszenty spent 15 years in voluntary confinement at the U.S. embassy in Budapest. He spurned repeated requests to leave Hungary and his flock. In 1971, he … Read more
When I was a kid, my siblings and I always felt short-changed on Fat Tuesday. Lent loomed on the horizon, with no sweets for forty days until we got a motherlode of chocolate eggs for Easter. It seemed like we should be able to pig out on Fat Tuesday, since, obviously, it was our last … Read more
Back in my New York days, when I was the greenest of greenhorns, I used to watch the three card monte players around Times Square. These are the guys who flip three playing cards around on an upturned box and goad the audience to “pick the red, pick the red, pick the red.” And they … Read more
On November 9, 2017, the Holy Synod of the Macedonian Orthodox Church—Ohrid Archbishopric sent a letter to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church with three requests: 1) recognition of the Macedonian Orthodox Church by other Eastern Orthodox Churches; 2) recognition of Macedonian Orthodox Church autocephalous status (canonical independence); and 3) readiness to recognize the Bulgarian Orthodox Church … Read more
Often, in comboxes on different sites around the web, I have witnessed the fury of self-avowed atheists whose favorite piece-de-resistance against Catholic presentations of the Gospel and morality consists of the ritual invocation of the clerical sexual abuse scandal that rocked the Church as a rhetorical mace with which to slam Catholics. Their aim, if … Read more
The bestselling book, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, is dangerous for Catholics of little faith. Rarely do you see a book that is so cunningly written to shake certainties and present as inevitable a stark and Godless future now being planned. The value of the book is not found in reading it. In … Read more
Any guess as to the leading cause of death? Heart disease… cancer… smoking… obesity? Not even close. At over 56 million deaths annually, the worldwide loss of life from abortion exceeds that of the top ten leading causes of death combined. Half of those—roughly 28 million deaths—are from legal abortions. Twenty-eight million people. That exceeds … Read more
In the summer of 2016, Cathy Miller, the owner of Tastries Bakery in California, was faced with a difficult decision. As part of its business, Tastries makes wedding cakes, and for the first time, a same-sex couple came in and asked for a wedding cake. Cathy, however, is a devout Christian. As a result, she … Read more
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you.” (Jeremiah 1:5) “Upon You I was cast from birth; You have been my God from my mother’s womb.” (Psalm 22:5) Last week fourteen Catholic senators joined those who voted against the proposed law that would have prohibited … Read more
President Trump recently announced his intention to move the United States embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, thus reaffirming it as the capital of Israel. This raised the collective eyebrows of millions of dispensationalist Evangelical Protestants. Their eyes fixed, as they saw it, on the prophetic markers of scripture (a Jerusalem-centric book) as it has … Read more
A young lady I know won a Kindle in an academic contest. She is a voracious reader. In eighth grade, she enjoys Austen, Chesterton, Lewis, and Wodehouse, among many others. A trail of books seems to follow her everywhere she goes. Her parents, wary of potential negative effects of screens on growing minds, would have … Read more
Editor’s note: The following paper was delivered at the “Into the Breach” men’s conference sponsored by the Diocese of Phoenix on Saturday, February 3, 2018 and is published with permission of the author. “Some ideas are so stupid that only an intellectual could believe them.” Those words are usually attributed to George Orwell. I’m not … Read more
Germain Gabriel Grisez, 88, died February 1, 2018. Philosophy and Catholic theology in the United States lost a giant in his passing. After Karol Wojtyła, I probably owe my greatest intellectual debt to Germain Grisez and the late William May and their work in ethics/moral theology. Their work in defense of Catholic teaching on sexual … Read more
What do political expressions like Right and Left have to do with religion? Nothing, some people say. The terms are misleading enough in politics, and carrying them over to religion stretches them beyond reason. Politics and religion are complex, and each has its own concerns, methods, and issues. So why use expressions like “right-wing” and … Read more
Austin Ruse rightly praises Ryan Anderson’s new book, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Movement, due out February 20. The book is an authoritative compendium of arguments on transgenderism, exposing much of the “science” and “medicine” that pretends sex is a state of mind. My favorite argument from Anderson’s forthcoming book is, however, what I … Read more
It is not an overstatement to say that the time of the Trump presidency has been one of protracted struggle between the national administration and most of the media. To be sure, the press and the electronic media have faced off with presidential administrations for a long time. Actually, the press has had their political … Read more