A young boy, 10 years old or so, faces the camera. Like many young boys he is happy to be interviewed. This is war-torn Iraq, however, so he tells of the day ISIS came to his village. What took place, horror after horror, he starts to recount. It is hard to accept that one so … Read more
“#NotMyPope.” In the wake of Pope Francis’ equivocal response to the murder of a French priest by two Islamic jihadists, that’s the top trending hashtag in France and in Belgium. Which raises a question: Is the Pope doing more harm than good by continuing to deny—in the face of a mountain of evidence—that Islam has … Read more
Many commentators tried to implicate Christians in the aftermath of the mass shooting in Orlando. But might it not be true that Western secularists have more in common with Isis than Christians? The two realities of Islamic extremism and Western consumerism are like shadowy doppelgangers showing up each other’s bankruptcy. Consider: I. ISIS and secularists … Read more
Syndicated columnist Derek Hunter made an observation in the aftermath of the Orlando shootings that parallels my own impression at the time: If you only watch network news and read the New York Times you easily could come away with the impression that last Sunday morning a conservative Christian man, draped in crosses and screaming … Read more
Mary Eberstadt is a master of analogy. In her masterful work Adam and Eve After the Pill, she compared the Sexual Revolution to communism, an ideology that hasn’t so much as failed, don’t you know, as one that simply needs one more good try. Neither empirical evidence, nor high body count, will convince true believers … Read more
Like all modern tyrants, Karl Marx hated religion, Christianity in particular, because he understood that it was going to be very difficult if not impossible to get men to follow him so long as they continued to follow Jesus Christ, and so the first thing an aspiring tyrant in the middle of Christian Europe needed … Read more
A few weeks ago I gave a talk in Omaha called “No Finer Time to be a Faithful Catholic.” In the talk I argue that it is the finest time to be a faithful Catholic not in spite of all manifold and manifest troubles we face today, but precisely because of them. I argue it … Read more
During Holy Thursday Mass, Pope Francis washed the feet of migrants, three of whom were Muslims. Most Catholics understood this as a gesture of humility and brotherhood. That is how the Catholic press reported it—and that, undoubtedly, was the Pope’s intention. Many Muslims, however, may see it differently—not as a gesture of brotherhood, but as … Read more
Mumtaz Qadri, a former elite commando and murderer of Punjab governor Salman Taseer, was convicted and finally hanged on March 1, 2016 in Pakistan. Qadri killed Governor Taseer on January 4, 2011 over his opposition to Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. Pakistan is among 15 Islamic countries across the globe where blasphemy laws are enforced. In all … Read more
“Dhimmitude,” like takfir and sharia, is a word of which Americans were happily ignorant not so long ago. Events, unfortunately, have expanded our Arabic vocabulary. As with other Islamic concepts, the meaning of dhimmitude, even its existence, is contested among Muslims. And misuse is not always merely semantic for those prone to issuing fatwas. No … Read more
Renaissance political thinker Niccolo Machiavelli castigated Christianity for making its adherents weak. Looking to the next world, he charged, Christians forget their public duties in this world, leaving their communities weak in the face of their enemies. Early Christian martyrs were hardly cowards. There were martyrs in Machiavelli’s day as well, and as I write … Read more
Being a New Yorker, I only go to the top of the Empire State Building about once every thirty-five years, and I have been to the Statue of Liberty just twice. Merely once in my life have I welcomed the new year in Times Square, and I had the impression that I was the only … Read more
The years-long assault on religious freedom continues in the United States, as Catholic charities, colleges, and other institutions are forced to comply with—or fight legal battles against—mandates concerning adoptions and employment matters related to same-sex couples, abortion and contraceptive health care coverage, and other items on the growing list of issues on which Church teaching … Read more
Two of America’s three branches of federal government have declared war on parental authority. President Obama’s Department of Education has been explicitly attacking schools that have the audacity to prefer traditional morality. However, making sense of the Education Department’s actions requires looking at the Obergefell same-sex “marriage” decision. The Obergefell decision explains why the Department … Read more
Among the entitlements that apply to every Catholic, there is one whose violation in recent years has become all too frequent, and that is the right to remain secure in the faith we received in baptism. How else are we to confront our persecutors? Unless we are made to feel, on the strength of a … Read more
Twenty-five years ago, a small group of activists charged the New York City Saint Patrick’s Day Parade with being a public gesture of pure homophobia. They built their case around the allegedly bigoted “Catholic character.” The trial was held before the judges of the left-leaning secular media. A jury composed of the general public yawned, … Read more
It started as a normal day. I sat down with a cup of French roast and signed on to Facebook. Once again, the word “bigot” was being hurled all over the place. We see this word more and more, mostly in disputes over gay “marriage.” The thing I despise the most about this word is … Read more
In an incisive talk in Des Moines August 24, Ted Cruz covered the issue of religious liberty in the United States. He was quite aware of the persecution of Christians in the Near East under Islamic regimes. He had a moving chat with the wife of an evangelical pastor imprisoned in Iran. He stated that, … Read more
Defenders of marriage and the traditional family continue to lose battle after battle to the purveyors of sexual liberation. So predictable have their defeats become that the judicial coup at the US Supreme Court over same-sex “marriage” surprised no one. Moreover, it finally but slowly seems to be dawning on Christian leaders that much more … Read more
Christians in the U.S. worry that the day may be coming when they will no longer be able to freely speak their minds about their faith. But that day has already arrived in Canada, Europe, and the U.K. In 2008, a Canadian Human Rights panel imposed a $5,000 fine on the Reverend Stephen Boisson for … Read more