Now here’s a fascinating story. Catholic man meets Jewish girl. They marry. He converts to please her family. They have a daughter. They divorce. She gets custody. He returns to the practice of Catholicism, and takes the three-year-old daughter to be baptized without his ex-wife’s knowledge. Then a Chicago judge issues a restraining order forbidding … Read more
The Eastern Catholic and Orthodox tradition of Forgiveness Sunday — otherwise known as Get Out of your Comfort Zone Sunday — is fast approaching. (As my husband is canonically a Ukrainian Catholic, I have the good fortune of discovering another world of “new” old practices.) On the Sunday before Lent, during a Vespers service, you … Read more
I was instructing some eighth graders on the sacrament of marriage some time ago, and they wanted to know why it was wrong to live together with someone before marriage. I explained about the sacredness of the marriage act, but one girl insisted, “But what if you just live with a guy, but you’re not … Read more
Our culture pretty much winks at adultery these days. It winks sort of like Maurice Chevalier, lecherously ogling "girls, girls, girls" in some old musical number. Adultery is sold as a charming but lovable fault, as with that adorable rascal Bill Clinton. Or else it is sold as exciting and sexy, as with Brangelina. … Read more
Beethoven, Shakespeare, and the rest — how we extol them. “Oh, I do love his 7th Symphony so much!” Or, “Oh yes — ‘To be or not to be. . .’ — so powerful. So immeasurably profound.” The thing about all of this, of course, is that once one has graduated from school, the chances … Read more
“Well, there goes my Catholic hipster cred,” I said to The Wife the morning after seeing Fireproof, the new film from the Christian filmmaking team behind Facing the Giants. “Now I have to go on record saying I didn’t hate a film where accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior plays an integral … Read more
The juxtaposition of same-sex “marriage” being approved in California with the raid on the Texan polygamists seems to have made a few people ponder the logical connection between homosexuality and polygamy — and, in some cases unhappily, reflect that former senator Rick Santorum was right when he said the Supreme Court’s Lawrence decision would … Read more
With Father’s day just around the corner, it’s a good time to take a look at the importance of fathers in our society. In 1950, 6 percent of America’s children lived in a home without a father. Today, almost one out of every four children does not have a “Dad” at home, and about 40 … Read more
Almost four decades after the “no-fault” divorce revolution began in California, misconceptions abound. Even the many books about divorce, including myriad self-help manuals, are full of inaccurate and misleading information. No public debate preceded the introduction of no-fault divorce laws in the 1970s, and no debate has taken place since. Yet divorce-on-demand is exacting a devastating … Read more
“Evangelicals feel like they have been served their divorce papers,” said one major Evangelical leader in an interview on Saturday. “They don’t know exactly what they are going to do,” he told me, adding, “There are going to be meetings all over the country in the next few weeks to decide our strategy.” Events of … Read more
Last week I was asked how to advise a twelve-year-old girl who has been asked to babysit for neighbors. The problem was that the neighbors are a lesbian couple who have had a child by artificial insemination. The girl was uncertain what to do, and uncomfortable at the prospect. The previous weekend, we were having … Read more
"And God created man in His own image; in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them." I cite the Masoretic text of this famous passage from the first chapter in Genesis, for it is the more poetic, and it conveys something of the dance of complementary opposites — the … Read more
“Come sit over here,” my wife whispered to me. “Let’s give Dad a chance to be alone with her.” It was a quiet room in a hospice, the only sounds the muffled pumping of oxygen, and the softer and slower breathing of my mother-in-law, Esther, as she lay a few hours before her death. Her … Read more
