Indiana has shown that it values religious freedom. The University of Notre Dame has a moral obligation to embrace it. On Thursday, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signed the state’s new Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which says that government may not “substantially burden” religious exercise, except when using the “least restrictive means” of advancing a … Read more
“Human beings procreate male-female, but human sexuality isn’t just about that. It’s about so much more, which is self-evident.” So says Fr. Patrick Conroy, chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives, at the outset of a recently released short film promoting the normalization of LGBT lifestyles within the Catholic Church. The film is entitled “Owning … Read more
The New York Times was abuzz March 5. The board of trustees of South Carolina’s Erskine College—a small, liberal arts college historically associated with the Presbyterian church—had issued a statement declaring that the school considered “all sexual activity outside the covenant of marriage [as] sinful and therefore ultimately destructive of the parties involved.” Not only did … Read more
A man I know was a top executive at a major American media company, one of the biggest and most influential in the world. A young man came into his office one day asking to display a rainbow sticker with the words “safe space.” This was a decade ago and this man, a faithful Catholic, … Read more
Three homosexual men have “married” each other in Thailand in what is being billed as the world’s first three-way same-sex “marriage.” This was, of course, inevitable. It’s inevitable in every country that redefines marriage as anything but one man and one woman. When the culture’s only standard for “marriage” is that the parties love each … Read more
The statement signed by prominent public intellectuals and published in First Things is a well-intentioned effort to avert same-sex “marriage.” In it the authors declare same-sex “marriage” a more serious matter than divorce or cohabitation. This claim should not be invoked lightly since it reflects a serious failure of leadership. This is not what Christian leaders … Read more
Dear Justice Kennedy, June is nigh, and with it will comes your ruling on the most contentious political issue of our time: marriage. I write because I am one of many children with gay parents who believe we should protect marriage. I believe you were right when, during the Proposition 8 deliberations, you said “the … Read more
Okay, here we go. We finally have maybe the moment we’ve been waiting for. A major national case of gay marriage, specifically in the country of Slovakia, has prompted Pope Francis to come out firmly and actively against redefining traditional marriage as the Roman Catholic Church has long understood it. In so doing, progressives/liberals who … Read more
In their zeal to protect students from any comments or opinions that may hurt their feelings, many professors have created “safe spaces” in their classrooms—controlling all conversations in an effort to ensure that no one is ever offended. But, a recent controversy at Marquette University has revealed that a “safe space” is now defined as … Read more
In an attempt to undermine the right of Catholic K-12 schools to “hire (and fire) for mission” the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle recently claimed that while the paper will not “quarrel with Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone’s determination to ensure that his rigid interpretation of Church doctrine is taught at four Catholic high schools,” they suggest … Read more
In November of 1996 First Things hosted a symposium titled “The Judicial Usurpation of Politics” in which contributors discussed the threat to American democracy posed by the Supreme Court instated imposition of abortion on America. Nothing rivals the sheer volume of innocent human beings killed by abortion and yet First Things saw fit to focus … Read more
In his trip to the Philippines, Pope Francis once again defended marriage, and he again edged closer to a firm, unequivocal papal statement against same-sex “marriage.” As Francis clearly continues to carefully move in that direction, liberals, both secular and non-secular, non-Catholic and Catholic, are going to feel a severe sense of betrayal and grave … Read more
Very recently the view that homosexuality is entirely normal has become not only widespread but compulsory in secular public discussion. Leaders of thought tell us the change has been part of a general deepening of moral insight and improvement in the art of living. The older outlook oppressed millions out of fear, bigotry, and ignorance. … Read more
It’s no secret that liberals adore Pope Francis. The more secular the “progressive,” the greater the reverence for the new man in the Vatican. Liberals—which includes liberal Catholics and Protestants as well as secularists—see the pontiff as the long-awaited liberator of the reactionary Roman Catholic Church. And yet, if you think about it, there aren’t … Read more
In a recent piece on the Synod, I argued that sometimes a change of Church discipline cannot not happen without a change in Church doctrine, and that since Church doctrine about Communion for Catholics who have obtained a civil divorce and remarriage does not change, Catholics should not expect Church discipline to change either. Today I … Read more
I got scolded good and proper at the Vatican conference on man-woman complementarity this week. In an article for Breitbart News I named some of the participants in the conference. I asked around and no one knew there was an embargo on the identities of the participants. Indeed attendees were busy emailing and Facebooking the … Read more
Brian Camenker is a rabble-rouser from Massachusetts who founded something contentiously called MassResistance, a state-based pro-family group that takes perhaps the most aggressive stance in the country against the homosexual agenda. In a recent column published on his website, Camenker offers no quarter to the national pro-family groups that he says have botched the fight … Read more
Two incidents involving basic constitutional freedoms—not closely associated with one another in the media or by those involved—highlight the growing power of sexual radicalism in our society. Radical sexual ideology in a broad sense has not generally been recognized as a political phenomenon worthy of attention. But we can see in these developments—both of which … Read more
The Supreme Court’s recent refusal to hear lower court cases over marriage is, as I noted elsewhere, a setback for sound constitutional self-government and a setback for a healthy marriage culture. Rather than a single Roe v. Wade of marriage, where the Supreme Court would redefine marriage across the nation, the Court, by refusing to hear any … Read more
The Interim Report (IR) of the Synod of Bishops on the Family released on Monday, October 13, represents a summary of the discussion of the first week of the Synod. Here’s the problem with the IR in a nutshell. It claims to offer “a significant hermeneutic key that comes from the teaching of Vatican Council … Read more