You’d never know it by listening to the GOP presidential hopefuls, but the Republican Party is launching a major effort to woo Hispanic voters in next year’s election. The reason is simple: demographics. Unless the GOP wins a larger percentage of Hispanic votes in key states next year than it did in 2008, the White … Read more
Earlier this year the Australian federal government unveiled draft legislation to introduce plain packaging laws for cigarettes. Health minister Nicola Roxon was unequivocal in her determination to put the final nail in the coffin of the tobacco industry. Showing off the new compulsory olive green packaging with vivid images of clogged arteries, cancerous gums and … Read more
During the Labor Day holiday, I read two dialogues of Plato, the “Timaeus” and the “Parmenides.” These are among Plato’s longer and more difficult dialogues — the first about creating the world, and the second about the One. In the “Timaeus,” we read: “As the ancient proverb well puts it, ‘Only a man of sound … Read more
Some of society’s most intractable problems come not from its failures but from its successes. Often you can’t get a good thing without paying a bad price. A prime example is our public old-age pension system, Social Security. It has been completely successful in wiping out poverty among the elderly. Old ladies no longer have … Read more
Over the past 30 years, the language of business life has become replete with ethical phraseology. Words such as “social responsibility,” “business ethics,” and “triple bottom line” bounce around in MBA classes, in corporate boardrooms, and even on stock trading floors. This phenomenon is not limited to the business world. Individual and institutional investors regularly … Read more
In the flood of commentary surrounding the 10th anniversary of 9/11, I found but one reference to a related anniversary of considerable importance: the fifth anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI’s Regensburg Lecture. That lecture, given the day after the fifth anniversary of 9/11 at the pope’s old university in Germany, identified the two key challenges … Read more
What’s the common thread between Europe’s financial mess, particularly among the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain), and the financial mess in the U.S.? That question could be more easily answered if we asked instead: What’s necessary to cure the financial mess in Europe and the U.S.? If European governments and the U.S. Congress … Read more
Which pope said the following? The family is a kind of school of deeper humanity. But if it is to achieve the full flowering of its life and mission, it needs the kindly communion of minds and the joint deliberation of spouses, as well as the painstaking cooperation of parents in the education of … Read more
They say “all politics is local.” But economic decisions impact the whole economy and reverberate internationally. That is why politicians’ meddling with the economy creates so many disasters. The time horizon of politics seldom reaches beyond the next election. But, in economics, when an oil company invests in oil explorations today, the oil they eventually … Read more
We know very little about Christian imaging before the fourth century. Persecutions and other upheavals have erased all but traces, making the tantalizing remnant all the more fascinating. Anyone searching for images of Christ is struck by an astonishing fact: There are hardly any direct representations of Him. Those one finds are bare sketches, focused … Read more
The current battles over the fate of thousands of babies conceived via in vitro fertilization would confound even King Solomon. Sensational news reports surrounding the $180,000 price tag for Ukrainian black-market babies shocked the determinedly secular segments of society, and few remain unmoved by the story of the FBI’s round-up of “baby-brokers.” Beyond the initial … Read more
During the last Republican presidential debate, Herman Cain argued that, as a survivor of colon and liver cancer, he would have died if “Obamacare” had been in place when he sought critical treatment. It was a stunning statement, and it certainly underscores the real concern that people have with bureaucratic control of their health care. … Read more
The abortion debate has raged since 1973, when the Supreme Court gave abortion constitutional protection, but the basic law of the land has proved immutable. Abortion is legal, and it’s going to remain legal for a long time. Laws often alter attitudes, inducing people to accept things — such as racial integration — they once … Read more
This prayer, offered quietly by the deacon or priest at Mass, often goes unnoticed. It is the prayer said in preparation of the cup of wine that will soon become the cup of the very blood of Jesus. This simple prayer expresses succinctly our Catholic belief concerning the Real Presence of Jesus in the sacrament … Read more
A mom recently emailed me a complaint. “You never share stories anymore! I always loved your stories.” It’s true that I regularly used to share stories from my real-life experience as a Catholic mom of many children. It turns out that misery really does love company, and the woes of nighttime teething and tantruming toddlers … Read more
In his dogged quest to boost employment, President Barack Obama has searched far and wide for new solutions. One provision in his American Jobs Act may very well have a positive impact on hiring. Just not in America. The section consists of a ban on discrimination against the unemployed. Some companies have posted ads that … Read more
“On the whole, it would appear to be for the best that the great majority of human beings should go on living in the place in which they were born.” So wrote T.S. Eliot in Notes Towards the Definition of Culture. Like much of Eliot’s cultural philosophy, it is a thoroughly contrarian, even atavistic notion, … Read more
For the past year, it has been bioethical bow, scrape and grovel time in Washington DC. After learning that American public health researchers had infected about hundreds of Guatemalans with venereal diseases between 1946 and 1948, President Obama had to telephone his Guatemalan counterpart to apologize. He then set up a commission to investigate … Read more
The fight to protect Catholic institutions from the Obama administration’s new health-insurance mandate is not only a dispute over contraception and abortion. For many colleges, schools, and charities, it is a fight for the right to be Catholic. If the outrageously narrow “religious employer exemption” put forward by the Department of Health and Human Services … Read more
As Barack Obama huffs and puffs about his tax plan, which is unlikely to pass in the Democratic-majority Senate much less the Republican-controlled House, Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, has provided a much broader view of where the United States stands amid great changes in the world and some useful guidance on what … Read more