The Democrats made some waves last week with their proposed “Paycheck Fairness” legislation, purportedly designed to ensure that men and women get equal pay for equal work. It was heartening to see this rhetoric mostly fall flat. When the Democrats tried to raise some emotion with the infamous “77 cents” statistic, even mainstream publications called … Read more
In worldly terms, Chiara Corbella’s life was not a success story: two children dying shortly after birth, herself ravaged by an aggressive cancer, which killed her at the young age of 28, leaving a beloved husband and a small son behind. This is not the kind of material dreams are made of. Yet when one … Read more
It is certainly not breaking news to assert that America is in cultural decline. Many aspects of this decline have been widely documented: the breakdown of the family, threats to life, and ever increasing secularization. My intent in this article is to draw together the consistent progression of this cultural decline so that we can … Read more
Father Longenecker had an amusing blog last week, headlined “archbishops should live in palaces.” “I think the Pope should live in the Apostolic Palace,” he says, “and I think Archbishop Wilton [Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta, who is moving out three months after moving in] should live in his brand new $2.2m home. I think … Read more
It is a bedrock assumption of our age that diversity is a good thing—something to be encouraged and celebrated. Nowadays, for example, a good part of a college mission statement is typically devoted to extolling the institution’s diverse faculty, diverse student body, and diverse course offerings. Similar claims to diversity can be found in the … Read more
This past weekend I enjoyed seeing the latest installment of Marvel’s Avenger franchise, Captain America: Winter Soldier. I must confess that I have a somewhat juvenile curiosity toward these recent rounds of “super” mania films. I don’t care so much for the over the top action and violence sequences, but it is quite intriguing to … Read more
The life of John Gerard, an English Catholic and Jesuit missionary priest, well illustrates what is at stake when the power of the state is enlisted against the Catholic faith and church. The persecutions of Queen Elizabeth I and King James I meant that the English government hunted down John Gerard as though he were … Read more
Joe Hargrave’s response in Crisis to my article “Presidential Power: A Rescuer, Not a Nemesis” was thoughtful, but contained certain problematical assertions. The first was his suggestion that my call for a new American Cincinnatus—an utterly virtuous, capable, and self-limiting leader who will exercise sweeping executive power in our critical current situation—is an “appeal to … Read more
After decades of well-documented dissent on many Catholic college campuses over Church teachings on abortion, contraception, and same sex marriage, a new front in the Catholic culture wars has opened on Catholic K-12 campuses as increasing numbers of gay and lesbian teachers and administrators at these schools are lobbying for the right to marry their … Read more
What you are about to read is disturbing. It will unnerve you. It should. Last week Under the Skin was released in the United States. This low budget British movie has little by way of traditional plot, even less dialogue. Some of it was shot with non-professional actors, at times using hidden cameras. Its director, … Read more
Lent is a detective story. It is the detective story in which the soul is investigator, victim, and culprit all at once. Out of the entire year, it is during Lent that the Church demands that we confess our sins, and confession requires a full inquiry. This is just one aspect of the call to … Read more
The other night I testified (via telephone) before the Alaska state legislature, on the standards their public schools are adopting for classes in English. I’d read the standards but didn’t have them in front of me, so I was taken aback when one of the representatives plucked a directive out of all the verbiage and … Read more
I am not terribly accustomed to attending bilingual masses. I’ve avoided them rather religiously (sorry) ever since my wife and I went to a Spanish-English mass on Ash Wednesday when she was very pregnant. After well over an hour and a half of hearing each part of the mass said in one language, then repeated … Read more
As any number of observers have pointed out, multiculturalism is the Trojan Horse by which militant Islam entered the West. The spread of the more extreme manifestations of Islam only became possible when the West capitulated to the doctrine that assimilation to Western values was no longer desirable and criticism of Islamic practices no longer … Read more
Bible stories were an important part of my childhood. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know that David slew Goliath and that Cain slew Abel. Meditations on Jacob’s deceitful usurping of Esau’s blessing, and on David’s lamentation over the dead Absalom, formed some of my earliest ideas about the nature of justice and … Read more
In his October 2013 article on the question of communion for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, Cardinal Gerhard Müller underscored that the Catholic Church had risked much to uphold Christ’s teaching regarding true marriage’s indissolubility. The Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith singled out the fact that Catholicism had suffered the … Read more
In a US News and World Report essay that has been widely denounced as incoherent, poorly researched, and bigoted, Jamie Stiehm recently reproached Justice Sonia Sotomayor for her “clear religious bias” in dropping “the ball on American women and girls” as she “undermined the new Affordable Care Act’s sensible policy on contraception.” The Justice did … Read more
In the so-called Age of Enlightenment, philosophes like Voltaire worked zealously to destroy Christianity among the elite of society, at the same time, not caring one whit for “enlightening” the lower classes. In a letter to Diderot, the famous wit wrote, “Whatever you do, keep your eye on the wretch. It must be destroyed among … Read more
Even before its opening March 28 the film Noah starring Russell Crowe as the man commissioned by God to build an ark, stirred controversy among Christians. A number of Christian reviewers have praised the movie. But Noah has its significant detractors, many of whom have condemn its unbiblical mounting of the Genesis story. This reviewer … Read more
Lent is a time of personal transformation, so it is a time of inwardness. It nonetheless has an outward-turning aspect. Man is social, and God is other than ourselves, so in addition to fasting to help us put our attachments in their place, Lent encourages prayer and almsgiving to increase our love of God and … Read more