• Subscribe to Crisis

  • Humanae Vitae

    Fifty years after the opening of the Second Vatican Council, the Church in the United States is in the throes of a struggle. Loyal Catholics are showing renewed vigor and vitality, and are helping the Church to move forward in…

    { 67 comments }

    Veritatis Splendor: The Encyclical that Mattered

    by Samuel Gregg

    There are papal encyclicals, and then there are papal encyclicals. Some escape public attention almost from the moment they’re promulgated. Others continue reverberating inside the Church decades after they appear. But there’s also a third type of encyclical: those which…

    Read more

    The Cost Of Being Catholic

    by Christopher Manion

    Nowadays, “charity” conjures up various images, some of which are quite distant from everyday life. Consider the “nonprofit sector”—or government welfare programs. Others images are more immediate—soup kitchens, or Salvation Army kettles. But charity—caritas—is actually a supernatural virtue. As Saint…

    Read more

    The “New” Tone of U.S. Bishops Sounds Very Familiar

    by George Neumayr

    In a frank interview with the Wall Street Journal last year, Cardinal Timothy Dolan conceded that the post-Vatican II Church in America has “gotten gun-shy” on hot-button moral issues. The Church’s encyclical on artificial birth control, Humanae Vitae, “brought such…

    Read more

    The Strange World of Garry Wills

    by Tom Piatak

    These must be trying times for Garry Wills.  In 2001, he wrote a book blasting the papacy, Papal Sin:  Structures of Deceit.  But ordinary Catholics did not take up Wills’ call to turn St. Peter’s into a Congregationalist meeting house. …

    Read more

    Abortion and the Contraceptive Mentality

    by Arland K. Nichols

    This year marks an auspicious anniversary—forty years of nation-wide abortion on demand since Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. These cases declared a right to abortion that was more permissive than the law of any state. A woman could…

    Read more

    The War We Are In

    by Christopher Manion

    These are not the best of times. In fact, some folks say that the Catholic Church in the United States confronts today the greatest challenge in its history. Things were already tough before the November elections, but now they’re in…

    Read more

    The Contraceptive Imperative

    by Kenneth D. Whitehead

    You don’t have to go out of your way today to be confronted with the subject of contraception. In November, 2012, the United Nations Population Fund issued its annual report entitled “By Choice, Not by Chance,” describing contraception as a…

    Read more

    Who Are We?: Catholic Faith in Light of the HHS Mandate

    by Pete Jermann

    Who do they think they are? Such must have been the thought of many Catholics when the Obama Administration ruled that Catholic institutions must provide contraceptive services to their employees. We responded with outrage, indignation and, perhaps most of all, surprise over…

    Read more

    Strange Bedfellows: The Church and Secular Social Scientists on the Harmful Consequences of the Sexual Revolution

    by David Paul Deavel

    G. K. Chesterton wrote in his 1908 classic Orthodoxy, “The unpopular parts of Christianity turn out when examined to be the very props of the people.” The outer crust of Christian reality is a moral sternness that seems ugly, but…

    Read more

    Good News for Women as More Catholic Physicians Follow Church Teaching

    by Arland K. Nichols

    A wave of excitement is gradually making its way through a small community of Catholics in Houston, Texas. Married couples who embrace the Church’s teaching in Humanae vitae and who use natural family planning have waited too long. Houston, which…

    Read more

    How Protestants Learned to Love the Pill

    by Allan Carlson

    The Protestant Reformation was in significant part a protest against the perceived antinatalism of the late Medieval Christian Church. It was a celebration of procreation that also saw contraception and abortion as among the most wicked of human sins, as…

    Read more

    The Differences the Pill has Made

    by George Weigel

    Mary Eberstadt is my friend, but I’ll risk charges of special pleading and self-plagiarism by quoting my endorsement on the dust jacket of her new book, Adam and Eve after the Pill (Ignatius Press): “Mary Eberstadt is our premier analyst…

    Read more

    The Coming Age of the Laity

    by Christopher Manion

    To win the culture war, the Church is going to have to break a lot of bad habits. And old habits die hard. A new generation of bishops now recognize the perils of allying with the American government that Pope Leo XIII warned against a century ago.

    Read more

    Leviathan Groaning

    by Anthony Esolen

    On June 25, 2009, a seven year old boy was abducted at gunpoint from his terrified parents. They had just boarded a plane to fly to the country where the boy’s mother had been born, and where her kin still…

    Read more

    Are Liberal Terms Dominating the HHS Mandate Debate?

    by Patrick Deneen

    I am disquieted by the way in which the issue of the HHS mandate has largely been framed – not only by the Left, but perhaps more by the Right.

    Read more

    Is America Just a Protestant Botch?

    by Christopher Manion

      This essay is part of today’s symposium of lay Catholic opinion on immigration. For other contributions see this piece by Mark and Louise Zwick, this one by John Zmirak, and this news report from Zenit. For Deal Hudson’s view,…

    Read more

    Talking Nunsense About The Pill

    by Alex Perrottet

    Did you know that the Catholic Church says it’s OK for a doctor to use a knife? Seriously, it’s OK. A doctor, as long as he is doing it for health reasons and not intentionally hurting the patient, can use…

    Read more

    NFP: The Myth of the “Contraceptive Mentality”

    by Rev. Ryan Erlenbush

    A recent Sunday was designated by the bishops of the United States as “Respect Life Sunday.” As we pray and work for an end to abortion, it is well to remember that there is a profound connection between the prominent…

    Read more