As anno domini 2020 limps into another month, we are all bound to hear a thousand times, “I can’t believe it’s June already!” (or some slight variation thereof.) We heard it in May, and in April before that. This is one of the strangest side effects of the coronavirus crisis: it has wrecked our sense … Read more
“The counter-revolution will not be a contrary revolution, but the contrary of revolution.” — Joseph de Maistre Should Catholics be excommunicated for holding views on race which are found to be insufficiently woke? The Jesuits seem to think so. In a June 1 editorial, America magazine urged Catholics to “hunger for [social] justice like we … Read more
Today, the Little Sisters of the Poor were back at the U.S. Supreme Court, hoping finally to bring their eight-year legal battle to an end. While several of the justices seemed inclined to side with the Trump administration’s expanded religious exemptions to the contraceptive mandate, I’ve been surprised to see much of the opposition to … Read more
And so it has come to pass in these strange and dangerous days that an American cardinal is being criticized—and even exhorted to resign—for expressing support for an American president. But those who are critical of New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan for taking part in a conference call with President Trump, and later complimenting the … Read more
Last week, President Donald Trump wished the country “Happy Good Friday,” and all hell broke loose. Suddenly, everyone was an expert on Catholic theology—or, at least, the emotional rubrics going along with Holy Week. Sure, most religious folk would not use the phrase “Happy Good Friday.” But most religious folk understood what he was trying … Read more
In early March, several players on the World Series championship team the Washington Nationals—Ryan Zimmerman, Trea Turner, Kurt Suzuki, Patrick Corbin, and Daniel Hudson—played golf with President Trump at his private West Palm Beach resort after a morning workout at the team’s spring training facility. Unsurprisingly, the Nats players were pilloried by the President’s many … Read more
With the exit of effectively everyone but Bernie Sanders from the Democratic presidential race, the path to the party’s nomination has been cleared wide open for Joe Biden. It’s now one-on-one, Biden vs. Bernie, with Biden almost certain to win out. If you’re a betting man, the odds are literally and overwhelmingly on Biden—87 percent, … Read more
On Ash Wednesday, the White House released a statement from President Trump. “For Catholics and many other Christians,” it reads, “Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Lenten season that concludes with the joyful celebration of Easter Sunday. Today, millions of Christians will be marked on their foreheads with the sign of the cross. The … Read more
The White House recently released a draft of a proposed executive order, titled Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again. This unexpected proposal sounded a clarion call to restore “classical and traditional architecture styles” in the future construction of Federal Government buildings in the capital and throughout the nation’s heartland, and discourage the post-1950s Corbusian trends of … Read more
Published 75 years ago in 1945, George Orwell’s Animal Farm presents revolution as a thing true to its name: revolving and returning like an infernal circle to the despotic power and blind capitulation originally repulsed. It is a principle suggestive of an ingrained brutality in political animals that cannot be broken. And the political animals … Read more
While in the United States one gets the impression that the country is moving to the Left, more and more people in Europe believe that Russia under Putin might become the savior of the West. It’s interesting to see that, with the U.S. election approaching, the Democrats seem prepared to accept candidates who, at best, played a humorous supporting role in … Read more
Andrew Yang is a man ahead of his time. Mark my words: within our lifetime, his ominous-sounding “Freedom Dividend—basically a universal basic income, or UBI—will become a plank of at least one of our two major political parties. And how could it be otherwise? Mr. Yang argues (correctly) that the developed world is going through … Read more
Etienne Gilson was one of the clearest thinking philosophers of the 20th century. As a good philosopher, naturally, he fully understood the importance of reason, a power that is often downgraded or even dismissed in the modern world. In an address he gave at Harvard’s Tercentenary Celebration (1936), he made the following statement: “Realism always … Read more
It is always painful to criticize someone you admire and consider a friend. But Jonathan Last—now the executive editor of The Bulwark, one of these new NeverTrump websites—has allowed his Trump skepticism to color his attitude, not just toward the March for Life but the pro-life movement in general. He gets a lot wrong along … Read more
President Donald Trump released his long-awaited Israeli-Palestinian peace plan Tuesday, promising a “new dawn” for the region. This comes after the failed $50 billion plan presented last July by the President’s counselor and son-in-law Jared Kushner. Dubbed the “Deal of the Century” by the White House, it aimed to establish financial infrastructure in the Palestinian … Read more
Mark Joseph Stern, the resident LGBT scold at Slate magazine, is having a hissy fit over pronouns. Stern complains that a “transgender” pedophile in federal custody was not allowed to be called by his preferred pronouns. The case revolves around a man named Norman Varner, who, in 2012, was found to have sexual images of … Read more
Author and political scientist Darrell West is deeply concerned about the current climate in the United States. “Societal tensions have metastasized into a dangerous tribalism that seriously threatens U.S. democracy,” he warns. “Unless people can bridge these divisions and forge a new path forward, it will be impossible to work together, maintain a functioning democracy, … Read more
As everyone knows, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives have passed a bill of impeachment against the president of the United States, Donald Trump. Oceans of ink have and will be spilled over this matter—and I am happy to add to the literary carnage. There is a great deal to be mulled over here. From the … Read more
President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order that interprets Judaism as a nationality or race—i.e., it should not be seen exclusively as a religion—so that the federal government can threaten to withhold funds from schools deemed to be fostering anti-Semitism in school activities, programs, curricula, and classrooms. The order was signed the day after … Read more
Integrity in the political arena is rare. Regardless of facts or circumstances, people so instinctively align with their party or “tribe” that many Americans have become nearly indifferent to critical thought or the search for truth. This is partly why Christianity Today editor Mark Galli’s December 19th editorial supporting the impeachment of President Donald Trump … Read more
