family

The Sheer Joy of Fatherhood

by Arland K. Nichols

Recently I ran into my former advisor at Texas A&M University whom I hadn’t seen for nearly a decade. While I held my son Thomas in my arms, I shared with him the details of my pro-life work for Human…

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The French Defy Socialists over Gay Marriage

by Joseph Meaney

Many should be aware of the massacres and massive human rights violations visited upon the Catholic Church during the French Revolution, especially in the Vendée, but there is another more recent period in French history in which the Church was…

Gay Scouting as the New Normal

by Bruce Frohnen

My favorite of Russell Kirk’s many books always has been Enemies of the Permanent Things. This wonderful, at times ironic, volume is a collection of social commentary, hopeful reminders of work still being done by important thinkers, and biting criticism….

Why “Value” Families?

by Bruce Frohnen

In responding to a recent post of mine criticizing our liberal culture for its hostility toward the traditional family, a commenter wrote: “I don’t know a single liberal who … doesn’t value (and participate in) both traditional and non-traditional families.”…

On State Culpability for Social Problems

by Anthony Esolen

In Philadelphia, about half of all students in ninth grade will graduate from high school. The dropout rate is especially high among black and Hispanic boys. President Obama’s answer to this problem is typical of the left: compulsion. Make dropping…

The Long War Against the Family (Part III)

by Ryan N. S. Topping

If you’ve been with us for the first two parts here and here, you’ll recall the three waves of attack against the family—(1) the assertion that marriage enslaves, (2) that children are a burden, and (3) that sexual difference is…

The Long War Against the Family (Part I)

by Ryan N. S. Topping

The progressive cultural elite has long perpetuated prejudices against the family that, unchallenged, lead to its ruin. Among several I cite three: (1) the assertion that marriage makes men and women less free; (2) the assumption that children are a…

The Modern State Causes the Problems it Pretends to Fix

by Anthony Esolen

Pope Leo XIII affirms that a well governed State will promote the material and moral prosperity of its citizens, will honor private property and free association, and will protect the poor from abuse or depredation by the rich. How to…

Why Marriage Matters

by Regis Martin

It was, not so very long ago, widely regarded in this country as morally wrong and, not infrequently, socially ruinous, for a man to walk out on his wife and children. In 1961, for example, Nelson Rockefeller, who was then…

The Cause of America’s Declining Birthrate

The birthrate in the United States has fallen to record lows, according to a new study published by the Pew Research Center. What’s more, the report says the most dramatic drop has been among foreign-born Hispanic women. We have been…

More Educated Women Opting to Have Families

by Shannon Buckely

Many people I talk to are worried that it seems to them that the ‘wrong’ sort of people are having all the babies – those who are not in stable relationships or who are, rightly or wrongly, perceived to have…

Marriage or Savagery: Lithuania Debates the Family

by Carolyn Moynihan

Some of the most interesting debates on family policies are taking place in the European countries of the former Soviet bloc. In 2008, Lithuania passed legislation to define “family” as the married union of a man and a woman together…

Subsidy or Subsidiarity

by Gerald J. Russello

Individualism and community are the opposite halves of the American character. For every myth of the self-made man, there is the image of the closely knit New England small town. For every lone cowboy on the frontier, there are the…

Catholic Schools: Toeing the Party Line

by Paul Kokoski

Robbed of much of their vitality by the violent implosion in religious orders, especially those devoted to teaching the young, over the past fifty years, our Catholic schools have struggled to stay alive – and many have closed their doors…

The Speed of Change in the Republic of Rights

by Rev. James V. Schall, S.J.

“I grew up in Kansas. When I began my book Render Unto Caesar in 2006, I had in my mind the America I always knew—or thought I knew. But that America, I admit, has been passing for fifty years, and…

Coming Apart: The State of White America

by Denyse O Leary

The American working class isn’t clinging bitterly to guns and religion; it is letting go of everything that once distinguished it. That’s what American sociologist and recent wave-maker Charles Murray says in Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010,…

Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows

by Mitchell Kalpakgian

“The clever men at Oxford Know all that there is to be knowed. But they none of them know one half a much As intelligent Mr. Toad!” A human being can be at home in the world just as he…

Progressive Inhumanity, Part One: The State against the Family

by Anthony Esolen

When they were casting for the old western The Rifleman, one small boy was brought into the room after another, to meet the star Chuck Connors and the director. Then young Johnny Crawford came in, a little gangly in the…

Quixotic Rick Santorum

by Christian Tappe

I half expect to stumble upon a YouTube video of Rick Santorum galloping through a field, lance in hand. Coming upon a small hill, he spurs his trusty steed onward, picking up speed as he nears the crest. Suddenly, he…

Beating the Competition

by Carolyn Moynihan

Business leaders are blaming the education system for the loss of jobs offshore. But aren’t they forgetting that other institution that turns out good workers?

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