Last month I noted that Catholics need settings in which they can lead a Catholic life among Catholics. For most of us, loving God and living as Christians take schooling and support, which we aren’t going to get from the world at large. That may be one reason the Apostle Paul’s letters focus more on … Read more
“IRS officials have, of course, confessed that they inappropriately targeted conservative groups—especially those with ‘tea party’ or ‘patriot’ in their names—for extra scrutiny when they sought non-profit status. Allegations of abuse or harassment have since broadened to include groups conducting grassroots projects to ‘make America a better place to live,’ to promote classes about the … Read more
The Boy Scouts have fought long and hard against being forced to include avowed homosexuals in its ranks as either Scouts or scoutmasters. In the Boy Scouts of America v. Dale (2000), the Supreme Court upheld the Boy Scouts’ First Amendment right of expressive association in removing an assistant scoutmaster who was “an avowed homosexual … Read more
The most astonishing fact about contemporary American politics—that there is not a single Protestant on the Supreme Court, while there are six Catholics—goes largely unremarked, even though on the surface it seems to fulfill the most dire predictions made at the time of John F. Kennedy’s ascendancy in 1960. On the other side, the fact … Read more
The revelations of the scandals within the Obama administration in the past couple of weeks make those of us who are old enough recall 1973, when Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s investigative reporting and then the hearings of a special Senate investigative committee brought to the public one astounding detail after another about Watergate. The … Read more
As Catholic institutions have come under unprecedented pressure from government to trim their religious and social mission, it seems incredible that Catholic educators would consider voluntarily placing their schools under an onerous federal yoke. But that incongruous prospect may be nearing reality as over one hundred Catholic dioceses have signed onto the Common Core Standards … Read more
As June approaches, get ready for the official celebration of “Gay Pride Month” by US embassies abroad. If sodomy and same-sex marriage are constitutional rights, what is their relationship to American foreign policy? Despite the tremendous controversy regarding these issues within the United States, the Obama administration has gone ahead and placed them at the … Read more
In the nineteenth century, German Catholics came to America by the millions, with surges following the revolutionary unrest of 1848 and the unification of Germany in 1871 that brought on Bismarck’s persecution of Catholics during the Kulturkampf. With them came heroic religious orders and devout laymen like those who founded Der Wanderer, a Catholic weekly … Read more
Now that the verdict is in on Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia abortionist convicted of delivering live babies—most of them African American—and killing them, perhaps President Obama might finally be willing to respond to the horrific crime. Silent on the facts of the case, it is curious why neither the President nor the First Lady have … Read more
The liberationist philosophy underpinning Obama’s co-ed, gay-friendly military holds, on the one hand, that sexuality is inherently fixed and thus beyond the control of individuals, and on the other that sexuality is subject to re-shaping “through changes in culture.” The social engineers of the military promised that age-old problems between men and women thrown together … Read more
Speaking at a Planned Parenthood conference last week, President Obama celebrated the abortion provider as an icon of progress. Mocking the legislative efforts of pro-lifers within such states as North Dakota and Mississippi to curb abortion, Obama said to his chuckling audience, “When you read about some of these laws, you want to check the … Read more
Criminal law and criminal justice in the United States may reasonably be said to be in a state of crisis in many different aspects: the increasing amount of criminal law, the kinds of things it tries to address, its enforcement, the level of criminal activity, and punishment. The sub-title of a book published by the … Read more
Believe it or not, in at least one specific area public discourse in the United States is a bit better than it was a few decades ago. How so? Today we occasionally hear the word “virtue” used—and not always in sarcasm. This is good news because the return of the word “virtue” to the lexicon … Read more
There’s deception going on in the front office of the Boy Scouts. It includes deliberate misrepresentation of polling data, and threats to pack an upcoming meeting with anonymous and unqualified voters so that the Boy Scout policy on homosexuality gets forced on the majority of Scouts and parents who don’t want it. The Boy Scouts … Read more
The world goes its own way without much regard for the Church, because it has very little regard for truth—that is to say, for reality. The problems go to the roots of current ways of thinking. The modern movement of thought began as an attempt to attain security and certainty by emphasizing what is practical … Read more
Just as Mr. Darcy’s aunt, the overbearing Lady Catherine De Bourgh, held that if she’d ever been taught music she would have been a great proficient, I’ve sometimes had the chumpaciousness to think that if I’d ever learned to draw I’d have been a good cartoonist. These inflated thoughts generally occur when I’ve got a … Read more
During his Apostolic Visit to the United States, on April 16, 2008, which was also his birthday, Pope Benedict XVI was welcomed to the White House by President George W. Bush. The Pope expressed the hope that his visit would be a source of renewal to the Church in the United States. Early in his remarks, … Read more
According to a recent survey, the average college student’s idea of Tyrannosaurus rex is modeled on Barney the purple dinosaur. Accurate portrayals in movies and textbooks make no difference: students continue to believe T. rex stood upright instead of pitched forward like the real thing. Once people get ideas in their heads it takes very … Read more
Gay activists tell us that “gay marriage is inevitable.” It’s a taunt devised to pick off the more faint-hearted clingers-on of traditional marriage by exploiting the human instinct to be on the winning side. And all too often, it works. Traditional marriage advocates rightly protest that this isn’t an argument. Nothing, they say, is ‘inevitable’ … Read more
In these dirty dishonest days you expect your political enemies deliberately to misstate your positions. How positively Medieval to restate your opponent’s position better than he can before demolishing it. Now is the day of the straw man, and the flimsier the better. While you expect this from your enemies, it’s disheartening to see 80% … Read more