On October 31, 1517, a 34-year-old Catholic priest affixed a notice of disputation, consisting of ninety-five theses, to the door of the castle church in the German town of Wittenberg. That act has come to be seen down the ages as a dramatic gesture of defiance and an open declaration of rebellion. It was not. … Read more
I have yet to meet an atheist (and I’ve met and had lengthy conversations with quite a few) who didn’t believe that really smart people (like him) don’t believe in God. It’s a sentiment seemingly supported by various polling data. According to a 2017 Pew survey, belief in God is lower among college-educated individuals than … Read more
Modern American society promises to make life so much easier. No longer do most people have to labor long and hard to make ends meet. Americans should have plenty of time to enjoy their leisure. But many don’t take this time. They have a problem with leisure. According to a report commissioned by Project: Time Off, the … Read more
In its decision in Trinity Lutheran v. Comer this week, the Supreme Court took another significant step in furthering its contemporary jurisprudence emphasizing the free exercise of religion. Trinity Lutheran Church operates a daycare and early-learning center on its church property in Boone County, Missouri. The church explicitly states that its early learning program is one of … Read more
John Senior is known as a cultural warrior for his books on Christian culture and as a pioneering educator for his role in the Integrated Humanities Program at the University of Kansas. As an English professor, his spiritual odyssey took him through the literature of East and West. His doctoral dissertation focused on the role … Read more
When I think of a holy hero who speaks with authority, who reflects my beliefs and values, I think of Pope St. John Paul II, worthy of canonization. When Fr. James Martin, S.J., who was out hawking his new book Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship … Read more
On June 14, 2017, James Hodgkinson, a staunch Bernie Sanders supporter and volunteer for the Sanders presidential campaign, opened fire at a Republican baseball practice in Virginia for an annual congressional charity baseball game. Hodgkinson had a list of Republican lawmakers in his front pocket, and was apparently attempting to kill as many Republicans as … Read more
There are a number of Muslim reform movements in the West and in the Muslim world which aim to make Islam a more peaceful religion by removing the more offensive parts. Some reformers, for example, want to rebuild Islam around the more peaceful verses of the Koran while discarding the violent verses. But what if … Read more
“No one,” we read in St. James’s epistle, “has ever been able to tame the tongue. It is evil and uncontrollable, full of deadly poison” (3:8). One wonders if Phil Montag, until very recently an official for the Democratic party in Nebraska, ever read, or understood, St. James. Montag was properly fired after he was … 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
Catholics always have been taught that the word “catholic” means “universal,” and arguably one of the hallmarks of the Catholic faith is that it recognizes no borders; while there are many rites, of which the Latin is the predominant one, there is one truth, one set of dogma. As I consider this from St. Louis, … Read more
For decades liberals have claimed that Democrats care for the poor and Republicans don’t. And they really believe it. A meme that circulated widely over left-leaning blogs a few years back had a depiction of Jesus with a child on his lap, reading, It’s ironic because the biggest enemy of the Republicans isn’t Harry Reid … Read more
If you stand on London Bridge and look east you will see the Tower of London. It was on a small hill behind the Tower that, in 1535, St. Thomas More was beheaded. Thereafter, his head was taken to London Bridge and placed upon a spike for all who came and went across that bridge … Read more
What will be the result of the attack on worshippers outside the Finsbury Park mosque in London? Answer: It will almost certainly bring the total Islamization of England one step closer. On Sunday night, a man who said he wanted to “kill all Muslims” drove his van into a group of Muslims, killing one man … Read more
Every year, Amazon releases several pilot episodes for different videos that they may later make into a series. This year, one of the Amazon pilots is a show called Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Looking at the description (a housewife decides to become a stand-up comedian and achieves great success) it seems to be based roughly on … Read more
Hell—St. Teresa of Avila told her nuns to mentally visit the inferno during life so they would not be imprisoned in it after death. St. John Vianney sighed because the saints, who were so pure, cultivated holy fear while “we, who so often offend the good God—we have no fears.” At last month’s Rome Life … Read more
In Massachusetts, a young woman, Michelle Carter, has just been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter because, by verbal encouragement—numerous emails and other communications—she aided in the suicide of Conrad Roy III in July 2014. Mr. Roy had stepped out of the cab of a vehicle, filling with lethal fumes, only to hear Ms. Carter tell … Read more
Writer Dan Mattson has bequeathed a lasting treasure to the Church, a spiritual masterpiece titled Why I Don’t Call Myself Gay: How I Reclaimed My Sexual Reality and Found Peace. Might this be over-effusive praise for a book that’s only about homosexuality and identity labels? Not quite. That would be like saying St. Augustine’s Confessions was … Read more
Like many, I first encountered St. Therese of Lisieux on a prayer card. I was a kid and felt fascinated by a saint who did not look much older than I. I read her words about wanting to shower roses from heaven and kept the prayer card tucked into the mirror on my bureau, peeking … Read more
It was bound to happen. Even the venerable and visceral occupation of piracy has fallen to the vicissitudes of the movies. The bold and brazen pirates of the West Indies have a reputation in rags and ruins thanks to the ravages of the American entertainment crisis—but it is not too late to rescue the New … Read more