Let us come home at last to you, O Lord, for fear that we be lost. ∼ St. Augustine My recent conversion to Christianity (and although I was raised Catholic I feel the distance I’ve traveled in my spiritual journey warrants the name of conversion) has come about as the culmination of three different levels … Read more
Summertime is a favorite time for some favorite reading—but in these times, and in these summers, the issue is not simply, “What is to be read?” but “How is it to be read?” Readers are not only what they read, but also how they read; and civilized readers should not read like boors. Thus, they … Read more
Nostalgia lurks always in the near corners of the human imagination. It often takes very little to bring it to life; a sunny day, the wind blowing the grass, a taste of food, a smell, a picture. They all bring us back to sweet and sweeter times, childhood, courting, weddings, childbirth. These are all nostalgic … Read more
Respect for the truth about marriage has steadily waned in Western countries where contraception, cohabitation, and no-fault divorce have become commonplace. Many battles over the purpose of human sexuality have been lost because the faithful have been poorly equipped or unwilling to stand for the truth. In the aftermath of Obergefell v. Hodges, the marriage … Read more
Regard this essay as a qualified mea culpa. I have long maintained that there is no point in arguing against “gay marriage,” because there are no arguments for it. To argue that a “homosexual” has no right to marry another man is not unlike arguing that a unicorn has no right to be a computer … Read more
My French uncle, whom I always knew as “l’oncle Jean,” recently died. I was struck once again by the dignity and mercy of a Christian death, despite the accompanying pain and anguish. Unlike Brittany Maynard from Oregon who, suffering from terminal brain-cancer, euthanized herself, and unlike “Laura” from Belgium who, though physically healthy, intends to … Read more
The laws of several western countries, besides the Islamic ones themselves, do not permit anything critical to be said of Islam. Such laws forbid what is called “hate speech.” They often include other sub-groups like homosexuals, women, or race. Such laws and customs have practically reduced responsible freedom of speech to a dead letter. Fines … Read more
Why did same-sex “marriage” (SSM) activists focus only on gay marriage and not bring along polygamy for the ride? The arguments that apply to SSM certainly apply to polygamy, but with even more force. Consider that one of Anthony Kennedy’s arguments in favor of recognizing SSM was that there is a stigma attached to same-sex … Read more
Let’s get straight to the point. We no longer live in a culturally Christian state. We do not live in a robust pagan state, such as Rome was during the Pax Romana. We live in a sickly sub-pagan state, or metastate, a monstrous thing, all-meddlesome, all-ambitious. The natural virtues are scorned. Temperance is for prigs, … Read more
We humans can be a bit fickle sometimes. What we choose to do with our time often depends directly on how the people and places with which we associate ourselves make us feel. If we don’t feel welcome in a place, we probably don’t stay long. If we try a place or organization out on the … Read more
Sometimes it’s better to stop digging. That at any rate would be my advice if I were in the business of helping liberal news outlets in their desperate attempt to downplay the significance of this now-infamous video, in which we see Planned Parenthood medical director Deborah Nucatola expounding on her expertise at killing half-born babies. … Read more
“You must not abandon the ship in a storm because you cannot control the winds…. What you cannot turn to good, you must at least make as little bad as you can.” ∼ St. Thomas More, Utopia In Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court didn’t just confect a new right to same-sex civil marriage. In some ways, it inaugurated … Read more
Were one to conduct a survey of modern-day Americans, taken at random, it is likely that not one in a hundred would have heard of the poet, Richard Crashaw. Were one to cross the Atlantic and conduct a similar experiment with modern-day Englishmen, it is likely that the result would be the same. This neglect … Read more
There is a certain kind of American who, when overseas or in the presence of foreigners—especially Western Europeans—goes out of his way to advertise that he’s not at all like his ignorant and reactionary countrymen. Usually he does this preemptively. A well-timed joke about George W. Bush could do the trick. So could an ostentatious … Read more
The case for Same Sex Civil Contracts for Sexual Services (SSCCSS, abbreviated as SCS and pronounced as one word, “sex”) rests on the theft of the term “marriage” in order to strip it of any reference to true marriage. No defense of real marriage can be sustained when it accepts this identity theft as definitive … Read more
Tuesday afternoon, a three-judge panel in Denver effectively told the Little Sisters of the Poor that they would be forced to go along with the contraceptive provisions of Obamacare and relevant regulations regardless of conscience. If not, the sisters would be so severely fined by the federal government that they would have to close their … Read more
As you may have heard, marriage is in a bad way. Supporters of procreative marriage are increasingly pressured to abandon their views, while liberals busily debate whether they should follow up on their recent victory by “expanding” marriage further or just by abolishing it altogether. Over here in the land of the still-sane, we’re in … Read more
While much attention is understandably focused on the repercussions of the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision, the movement to bring the Boy Scouts of America into alignment with current LGBT orthodoxy is well underway. National Boy Scouts of America president Robert Gates announced in May that he wanted to end the organization’s blanket ban on “open … Read more
The current issue of Foreign Affairs published an essay by Ivan Krastev and Mark Leonard called “Europe’s Shattered Dream of Order: How Putin Is Disrupting the Atlantic Alliance.” The authors cite a 2014 WIN/Gallup International survey reporting dismal results from respondents regarding the virtue of patriotism in Europe. Only 29 percent of French respondents, 27 … Read more
For many people, Alfredo Ottaviani—head of the Holy Office (later the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) from 1952 to 1968—is the epitome of intransigent, pre-Vatican II Catholicism. He is what the Council had repudiated and moved beyond, or so it is supposed. Indeed, the sentiment expressed by the motto of Cardinal Ottaviani’s coat … Read more