Michele McAloon: When we remember the sacrifices of our military in Iraq and Afghanistan, we must not despair. Remember too Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary and hope. Withdrawal or defeat? Armchair quarterbacks and history books will debate the question for decades to come. For the majority of Americans watching the debacle of Afghanistan, this question is […]
Randall Smith: God has asked us to plant this field, the field we have before us now in the United States of America. And we do. . .what? We grumble. I’ve been watching The Chosen with friends, a show about Jesus and his disciples. I’m not going to comment on it, but you can read Brad Miner’s review here. […]
Brad Miner an extraordinary painting by Fra Angelico [click here to view the painting]. It’s a beautiful portrait of our suffering Lord: moving and not a little frightening . . . at first anyway. If, as I am, you’re a true art lover, you may come to suppose you’ve seen much of the world’s great […]
Casey Chalk: The promotion of Biblical interpretations serving secular, liberal political agendas of sex and race is only the latest manifestation of a centuries-old trend. The Bible makes no explicit condemnations of transgenderism. It makes no claims as to the morality of abortion. It encourages racial reparations. Such claims can be found virtually everywhere in […]
David Carlin: Is “systemic racism” real? Or is it an abuse of language, stretching the meaning of the word “racism” beyond its legitimate bounds? The issue of equality is almost always on the American national agenda. It was so from the day the Declaration of Independence was signed; it’s been so again and again in […]
James F. Keating: Today’s racial “illuminati” see only guilt (whites) and innocence (blacks). Redemption and reconciliation through forgiveness are missing. Sixty years after the Civil Rights Movement and ten years after the triumphant election of the first African-American president, the question of race has returned with urgency and fury. There is, alas, a group of Catholic intellectuals who […]
David Carlin: Catholic young people have generally abandoned the ancient teaching of their religion as to the sinfulness of homosexual practice. A few weeks ago my wife and I spent an afternoon with some old friends, a retired couple who had just come back from their winter home in Florida. The wife of this couple told […]
Robert Royal: If a civil public square is to exist for us, especially now, it will take a rediscovered gratitude for the foundations that made American life exceptional in human history. On the Fourth of July (even “as celebrated” on the 5th, as today), we all ought to be grateful for the freedoms of our American […]
Randall Smith: If we turn a blind eye on abortion, can we really face the God who made both them and us? More is at stake than Republican vs. Democrat. There were several especially interesting readings for the recent Solemnity of St. John the Baptist. One set begins with this text from Jeremiah 1:5: Before I formed […]
Robert Royal: Many of our social problems – notoriously including easy abortion – stem from the breakdown of the family, which became supercharged with the advent of the sexual revolution. The Pew Research Center, a reliable source on American attitudes about religion, found in 2019 that 43 percent of American Catholics were “unaware” of Church teaching […]
Brad Miner: We remember those who gave their lives in battle. As President Lincoln said in 1863, “It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.” The Catholic Thing was founded the week after Memorial Day in 2008, but in eight of the following dozen years, we’ve published a column, either by Robert Royal […]
John M. Grondelski: One lesson of the pandemic lockdowns is that threats to religious freedom are proliferating, and that every state in the Union should act to stop it. I have previously written about the imperative for the Church to restore the obligation to participate in Sunday Mass as part of the way back to normal in […]
Fr. Gerald E. Murray on Biden and abortion: He needs to be told that his objectively sinful behavior constitutes a culpable offense for which he needs to seek pardon after repenting. Should President Joseph Biden be admitted to Holy Communion when he attends Mass? The simple answer is, “No,” owing to his public and unwavering support […]
Taynia-Renee LaFramboise reviews a new edition of the book by TCT’s senior editor. A book for men it is, but men and women rise and fall together. We are verbose creatures. Humanity’s gift of language includes our gift of creating languages. But despite a surfeit of vocabulary, our terms often fail to adequately describe what we mean. Definitions slip. […]
Brad Miner reviews the new film about the case that legalized abortion and concludes you’d be better off watching “Gosnell” or “Unplanned”. In a 1989 TV movie, Roe vs. Wade, Holly Hunter played “Ellen Russell” and Amy Madigan was Sarah Weddington, the plaintiff’s attorney who argued the infamous 1973 abortion case before SCOTUS. “Ellen Russell” stood […]