Michael Apichella writes about his great, great, great uncle, Leo XIII, a great pope who quite literally confirmed the often patronizing quip: You’re not getting older; you’re getting better. It’s cliché (and a distinctly patronising one), to say: You aren’t getting older; you’re getting better. But there’s more than a little truth about it. As the […]
Anthony Esolen reflects on what happens when we tear down the solid foundations of Christian life. We need builders now. We must have slow, patient building, the building up of human souls. One day when I was a boy I was riding in the car with my father, in the countryside north of Carbondale, Pennsylvania, when […]
Howard Kainz: By establishing preconditions for dealing with value disagreements, we will arrive at the vestibule of Aquinas’ classical precepts. We hear much these days about the “Benedict Option,” inspired by Rod Dreher’s book by that name. Some Catholics surrounded by “nones” and liberals – and confronting public schools sexualizing students, local parishes preaching a […]
David Carlin writes that post-Vatican II, we’ve lost a sense of the sacredness of things: We need again altar rails, nuns wearing habits, rosary beads, holy water, Latin, etc. The best definition of religion I have ever come across is that given by the great French sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) in his book The Elementary Forms of […]
Anne Hendershott looks at the decline in male fertility, due partly to the Pill. Clearly, it’s time to consider the sociology and science surrounding the culture of “reproductive rights.” The recent research revelation that sperm counts for men living in the West have plunged by 60 percent since 1971 provides readers of P. D. James’s great dystopian […]
Robert Royal writes of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) on her feast day: a Jewish philosopher, who became a Carmelite nun and, ten years later, was murdered at Auschwitz. Every generation thinks it’s living in unusual times. Ours really is. We are witnessing the passing of our civilization and – like someone having brain […]
William Kilpatrick urges Catholic colleges and Catholic bishops to be cautious in promoting dialogue with Muslims that refuses to acknowledge the violent side of Islam. Marquette University will pay for its faculty to attend an “Overcoming Islamophobia” workshop in August. The Catholic university will also offer a graduate credit for attendees who submit a written assignment. […]
James V. Schall, S.J. on the “progress” towards the integration of machines into humans. This seems very much a case of something we can do but shouldn’t. Whether a technically enhanced Schall would be an improvement over the original version is probably something that I, though admittedly equipped with battery-powered hearing aids, do not have to […]
Three times in his speech at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, Cardinal Sarah described gender ideology as “demonic.” More recently, Oklahoma City’s Archbishop Coakley used the same word addressing the issue. So did Bishop Paprocki of Springfield regarding gay marriage. A strong word, to be sure. But most people misunderstand why. Some take “demonic” for […]
Matthew Hanley notes that a guy in Arkansas says he’s a hippo and Melinda Gates says The Pill is the key to ending poverty. They’re both wrong. In fact, The Pill is wrecking the environment. A graduate student at the University of Arizona thinks he is a hippopotamus. Well, that’s a sentence I never thought I’d […]
David Carlin on our ongoing national suicide: out-of-wedlock births, abortion, low marriage rates, divorce, failing schools. One might believe Americans don’t really care about kids. As an exercise in social clarity, let’s consider some of our prevailing ideas in America about children. First, there is the idea that we should have only a few of them, […]
Brad Miner reviews Christopher Nolan’s war saga. It’s the best film of 2017 (and among the best war films ever made) because it understands that character is key. I recall being stunned and impressed when I read, at some point after the fact, that the mobilization of rescue boats on the Hudson River on 9/11 evacuated […]
David Warren: Some seek satisfaction in robot “love,” but automating sex is wrong. We are facing a new “crisis”: an attempt to dehumanize sin. Fortunately, it can’t be done. I don’t know who was surprised, but I wasn’t, to read in some electronic tabloid that sex robots can be programmed for rape. Appalled, perhaps – I […]
William Kilpatrick notes the passage in Germany of a law legalizing same-sex “marriage.” Curiously, all Muslims in the Bundestag voted yes. The question is: why? The German parliament just voted in favor of same-sex “marriage,” and to the wonder of all, all six Muslim members of the Bundestag also voted in favor. Well, make that to […]
Rev. Jerry J. Pokorsky on the totalitarian liberal nature of seminary formation in the 1980s that has led to such absurdities as liturgical dance. In the 1980s, I attended a Midwest seminary that was schizophrenic with respect to the Faith. The moral theology department was very orthodox. But Scripture studies were essentially liberal Protestant. And the […]