Columnists | Crisis Magazine

July 4, 2012

Religious Liberty and Its Contemporary Enemies

Independence Day concludes the Fortnight for Freedom mandated by the U.S. bishops, a two-week period of reflection and prayer on the defense of religious liberty that began on the vigil of the liturgical memorial of St. Thomas More. In July…

July 3, 2012

Roberts’ Decision

by Mike Rappapport

This article orignally appeared at Library of Law and Liberty I had been writing a post speculating on why John Roberts might have joined the progressives to uphold Obamacare in the Sebelius case when I came upon the story by…

July 2, 2012

Religious Freedom: Use it or Lose It

by Dwight Duncan

Do you assume America is a free country? Do you assume religious freedom is guaranteed in America? Most of us learned that in school and have taken it for granted ever since. In other countries people might have to worry…

June 29, 2012

Prometheus

by Ronan Wright

Set twenty-seven years before the events of Ridley Scott’s 1979 iconic sci-fi thriller, Alien, Prometheus sees a team of scientists, employed by the sinister Weyland-Yutani Corporation; accept an ancient invitation from a mysterious star map which appears to promise the…

June 28, 2012

Pictures in a Cave

by Carolyn Moynihan

To one who has seldom given a thought to cavemen as a popular category, let alone to their proper scientific classification, last week’s news that they were painting pictures on cave walls more than 40,000 years ago required some intensive…

June 26, 2012

The Question of More or Less Government

by Mark W. Hendrickson

Theoretically, the elemental political choice in a democratic system is between more government or less—more government control over our lives and livelihood, or less; more government spending and programs than the year before, or less; more government power, or less….

June 25, 2012

The Queens English No More

by Carolyn Moynihan

On the last day of June a sad event in the long and noble history of the English language is scheduled to take place: the Queen’s English Society will formally be wound up. Forty years of trying to raise the…

June 22, 2012

Children of Same Sex Couples

by Michael Cook

Kids thrive in families with same-sex parents. This is beyond serious debate. The science says so. Get over it. Denying this self-evident truth has become tantamount to homophobia. In 2010 a Florida court, the Third District Court of Appeal, was…

June 21, 2012

Doomed Unless We Get Some Global Leadership (and Condoms)

by Marcus Roberts

Another day, another doomsday prediction. Having said that, the Mayan end-of-the-world thing in 2012 seems to have gone quiet. Almost like people realized that all that 2012-bruhaha was rubbish (the movie and the predictions). But this doomsday scenario is less…

June 20, 2012

Light from the South

by George Weigel

Prior to an April visit to Argentina, I read the “Aparecida Document,” the final report of the Fifth General Assembly of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean (CELAM), which was held in Brazil in 2007. This master plan…

June 19, 2012

Chaos On the Streets of Montreal

by Margaret Somerville

Like many cities around the world last summer, Montreal saw “Occupy Montreal” protests, with people taking over and camping in downtown spaces. These protests abated during our harsh winter months, but February saw a new protest theme emerge with students…

June 18, 2012

A Dad Like Jack: The Influence of Ronald Reagan’s Father

by Paul Kengor

When we open our newspapers on Father’s Day, we expect to find something nice about dads—often heroic dads. Yet, for every boy or girl whose father was a doctor or Marine who stormed the beaches of Normandy, there is a…

June 15, 2012

Peaceful Scottish Secession in the Works

by Melancton Smith

News reports inform us that members of the Scottish Parliament have for the first time voted in favor of Scotland becoming independent. Here is a snippet from the Stornoway Gazette: First Minister Alex Salmond hailed the vote, by 69 to…

June 14, 2012

Moving the Goalposts on the Defense of Marriage Act

by James S. Cole

It does not bode well for the rule of law when the standards for determining whether a statute is constitutional change from case to case. Justices Kennedy, Souter, and O’Connor of the US Supreme Court once wrote, “Liberty finds no…

June 13, 2012

The Nation’s Top “Progressives”

by Paul Kengor

The left-leaning magazine The Nation has published a list of what it deems America’s all-time, most influential progressives. The list, which you can review for yourself, is very revealing. For starters, it’s fascinating that The Nation leads with Eugene Debs…

June 12, 2012

Can Ireland Save Civilization…Again?

by Sheila Gribben Liaugminas

During the Dark Ages, the heritage of Western civilization would have been lost if not for heroic men and women of unconquered Ireland. Times are pretty dark right now in the West, and Ireland once again remains unfallen to anti-life…

June 11, 2012

Conservatism is Not an Ideology

by Bradley Birzer

Russell Kirk deserves special attention on the topic of ideologies. In his twenty-nine books on politics, history, constitutional law, literature, social criticism, economics, and fiction, the legacy of the French Revolution and the loosening of the ideologues upon the world…

June 7, 2012

How Government Policy Hurts the Homeless

by Tracy Miller

During a recent trip to Chicago, I couldn’t help but notice the large number of homeless people in the downtown area, including one homeless man pushing a child in a stroller. Homelessness was frequently discussed during the 1980s, but seems…

June 6, 2012

The Significance of D-Day

by Marvin J. Folkertsma

At 0227 hours on the morning of June 6, 1944, Lieutenant Robert Mathias saw the red light flash above the door of his C47 “Dakota” aircraft, signaling his men to get ready to parachute into a terrifying blackness that was…

June 5, 2012

Who Dares Attack My Chesterton?

by Zac Alstin

It is a cliché of pop psychology that we are least able to tolerate people who remind us of our own selves. There’s only room for one Life of the Party and we feel a twinge of antagonism toward anyone…

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