After Mass on Sunday, North Carolina pastor Rev. Andre Mangango was approached by a man who, a day earlier, was introduced as Mitt Romney’s running-mate for the 2012 presidential election. “I am Representative Paul Ryan and this is my son,” the man said. Ryan reportedly attended the 7:30 mass that morning with a group of … Read more
In the wake of the selection of Paul Ryan as the VP nominee, you will be hearing a lot about how Ryan is a bad Catholic because the Bishops criticized the Ryan budget plan. Let me cut to the chase: the USCCB was wrong (at least part of it). The text of the letter issued … Read more
Governor Mitt Romney seems to have stirred up some controversy by the remarks he made to a gathering in Jerusalem the other week. Contrasting Israel and the Palestinian territories, he said, “You notice a stark difference in economic vitality. And as I come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments … Read more
Catholicism sees freedom as directed toward the good life, and fills in the details with its understanding of God and man. Liberalism likes to avoid big issues like God, man, and the good, because they cause arguments, so it sees freedom not as freedom to pursue anything in particular but as freedom to choose freely. … Read more
Because scientific progress depends so much upon how research is conducted and peer-reviewed, the matter of research integrity should be a concern for everyone. An acquaintance of mine, University of Texas sociology professor Mark Regnerus, has recently found himself in the center of a tornadic controversy over a paper he published last month in the … Read more
In a recent article “Should Libertarians Be Conservatives” some libertarians were quite annoyed because I expressed my opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. I addressed the subject of same-sex marriage in an article on June 8. There I argued that there is no libertarian position on same-sex marriage. I address here the subject of libertarianism … Read more
This article originally appeared on Ethika Politika With the tragedy in Colorado, guns are back in the news. The liberal media laments that the NRA and those on the right quickly state that events such as this sociopathic shooting are not about gun control. Those on the right quickly call for more rights to … Read more
In the mid-1940s my father re-founded, with others, Troop 37 in a small South Carolina mill town. He resurrected what was clearly among the earliest local Boy Scout organizations in our country. In the mid-70s I re-chartered, with others, the same entity my father did a generation earlier. We both became Eagles, one of the … Read more
Edmund Burke, the eighteenth-century British statesman, has long been a popular figure for political conservatives to cite. But his views on religion get relatively little attention. This is a shame, because Burke has a lot to offer those concerned about matters of religion, morality, and politics in contemporary American life.
 The recent Supreme Court ruling on ObamaCare (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) which upheld the individual mandate as constitutional portends grave danger for those religious organizations now suing the federal government for infringing on their religious liberty. These groups rightly contend that the government has no right to decide who is religious enough to … Read more
This article originally appeared on Ethika Politika Lately Americans have been talking more explicitly than usual about what is called American exceptionalism. For most of my lifetime not much was said about this directly. Apparently most people just took it for granted and assumed that everyone believed it. But now politicians think they have to … Read more
“Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty to … Read more
When I was a child, I thought that living through a degenerate period would be great fun – one big party. Guns blazing, fast cars, beautiful girls, plenty of adult beverages – at least that was my idea of it from having watched movies about the Roaring Twenties with James Cagney. Now, as an aging … Read more
The Kennedys, Nancy Pelosi, Vice President Joe Biden. These are the names that Americans think of when they are asked to name the top Catholic political figures. Former Senator Rick Santorum, a Catholic, of course made a recent resurgence in the political world after the Republican primaries, but there are few new Catholic stars in … Read more
Just as Galileo was forced to recant when faced with massive pressure, Dr. Robert Spitzer has walked back from his study of the possibility of change for those with same-sex attraction, saying he misinterpreted his findings.[1] He is elderly and ill and probably never expected the kind of vilification he received for simply noting that … Read more
Robert Spencer is known as a bête noire to Islamist sympathizers. He published a critical blog with a chapter-by-chapter study of the Qur’an during 2007-2008, and in his current blog, http://www.jihadwatch.org/, furnishes us with up-to-date information hardly ever available from the mass media. He has also published several books on Islam and Muhammad; but his … Read more
Conservatism is poorly understood in the United States. It is not right-wing liberalism or nationalism; nor is it political Protestantism. It has nothing to do with a neurotic longing for an ideal past, and reactionaries, who insist there is nothing left to conserve, show that they don’t know the meaning of the word. Conservatism has … Read more
In 1997 the state of Oregon legalized physician assisted suicide (PAS), allowing a physician to aid and abet an individual in the unthinkable act of self-murder without fear of criminal prosecution. In many ways this disastrous decision both marked and helped to effect a shift in the thinking of Americans, many of whom increasingly view … Read more
I was recently contacted by Ben Johnson of LifeSiteNews, who told me of a fascinating development. He informed me of a curious fan of President Obama’s advocacy of gay marriage: Mariela Castro, niece of ailing and aging Cuban tyrant, Fidel Castro, and daughter of current despot, Raul Castro. Ben knows that my area of research … Read more
Robert Nisbet’s (1913-1996) The Present Age is a jeremiad arguably more potent now than when it was published. Written in 1988, this excerpt is in part a call for the genius with the next great idea to please step forward, the revolution is dangerously overdue. When he wrote it, Reagan’s second term was ending not … Read more