Joseph R. Wood: We need shepherds to lead us from godless illusions about equality to the lost truths of dogma. In the early 19th century, Alexis de Tocqueville traveled the United States while the country was still spiritually and philosophically close to the founding, but changing and expanding rapidly. The Frenchman compiled his observations in Democracy […]
Russell Shaw: Mass attendance is one area of Catholic decline. Another is that two out of five “cradle Catholics” no longer identify with the Church. Time to do something. As Holy Week got underway this year, many people were surprised to learn of a new Gallup survey showing fewer than half of all Americans now identify […]
Anthony Esolen: Sin makes the sinner a cripple. The principles of sin do more: they cripple a whole people. They cramp the spirit. Pictures come to mind when I think of the Lonely Revolution – that deterioration of the principles governing sexual behavior in the ruins of the Christian West. One is of my father and my mother, before they […]
Anthony Esolen: It’s not necessary to point at individuals, but that “rainbow” flag, which stands for the whole sexual revolution, must go. The Vatican recently declined to permit Catholic clergy to bless same-sex unions, averting an immediate and world-wide schism. No one should be surprised; relieved, perhaps, but not surprised. The Vatican has declined to overturn […]
Elizabeth A. Mitchell: The Cross clings to us and overwhelms, as it did Peter in the courtyard. Because there is no turning back from acknowledging Christ. In the courtyard of the High Priest, on the evening of Holy Thursday, a palpable fear will grip Peter’s heart. His Master is arrested. The powers of this world are […]
Hadley Arkes on Sen. Ben Sasse, who champions pro-life bills by promising Democrats they won’t affect abortion access, an appeal that fools no one. In the British comic Review in the 1960s, Beyond the Fringe, a commanding officer in the Royal Air Force sought to persuade a pilot to go on a kamikaze mission. “Smedley,” he […]
Rev. Jerry J. Pokorsky: We are not Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, even Americans first. We are Catholics, knowing the difference between good and evil. Divisive politics seems to poison every aspect of contemporary life. So there is an urgent need to reconsider what it would mean if what we were to seek is not an illusory […]
Michael Pakaluk on a lesson from early Christians: If I am not putting away everything else to move quickly towards Christ, I am going away from him. By chance, I picked up Henryk Sienkewicz’s novel Quo Vadis from the family bookshelf last week, when I was looking for a next book to read for enjoyment. (How desperately we […]
Fr. Paul D. Scalia: “Repent” is the foundational Gospel command. It’s always timely. Sin is the construction of one’s own petty little kingdom. Saint John Henry Newman once observed that men always think of their own day and age as the worst. In every time, he said, “serious and anxious minds, alive to the honour of […]
Robert Royal: You can carry rosary beads and bless yourself publicly as much as you want. But please, don’t expect Catholics to be blind. In recent days, Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago has described the pre-inauguration statement issued by USCCB President and Archbishop of Los Angeles José Gómez as “unprecedented” for what – in any non-partisan […]
David G. Bonagura, Jr.: COVID restrictions have exposed the privacy/liberty “right” to abort as what’s it always been: an arbitrary government edict. The irony is sickening. For decades we have heard the shrieks in defense of abortion and birth control: “Keep the government out of my uterus!” “My body, my choice!” “No woman can call herself […]
Robert Royal: Moral witness can succeed if enough of us, despite every threat, refuse to accept the violence and falsehood that are running wild among us. St. John Paul II used to tell a story – a true story – about a colleague of his at a Polish university where the future pope was teaching ethics. […]
Hadley Arkes: “Climate change” gives the Left a “moral” code, a kind of pseudo religion, without the reasoning that animates true religion. The state of our public discourse may not be at one of its heights, but it should be a telling sign that we haven’t heard anyone say that we have a remarkable “consensus” on […]
Michael Pakaluk: For the integrity of future elections, we must ruthlessly follow evidence for all claims of election irregularities, and – until then – withhold judgment. My goal here is to say some words to readers who are disturbed by the election, but to do so starting from non-partisan, Catholic premises solely. I want what I […]
Fr. Gerald Murray on the pope’s endorsement of civil unions for same-sex couples. Pope Francis must repent of this disastrous declaration, which inflicts grave harm upon the Church. The endorsement of civil unions for same-sex couples by Pope Francis in the film Francesco, directed by Evgeny Afineevsky, is a true scandal in both the technical and popular meaning […]