Nanny State

Lucifer’s Game

In generations past, the great majority of American children were raised by their mother and father, who lived in the same home. In such a culture, the rest of the community had little to do with the rearing and nurturing of the children. The bulk of the child’s maturation was due to the decisions and … Read more

The Perils of Utopian Overreach

With his usual erudition, C.S. Lewis sums up an important aspect of the human condition: The Christian says, “Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. … Read more

What’s New in the New Evangelization … And Why?

In 2010, Pope Benedict XVI established the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization, with his exhortation, Ubicumque et Semper (“Everywhere and Always”). He was explicitly responding to his predecessor Pope St. John Paul II’s call (Christifideles Laici) to re-evangelize the once-Christian countries of the tired old West, now lapsed from the faith. There has … Read more

Ending Charitable Deductions to Feed the Leviathan State

Indiana University professor Fran Quigley urges, in the progressive Catholic magazine Commonweal, an end to deductibility of charitable contributions against federal income taxes. His argument rests primarily upon the twin beliefs that the U.S. social safety net is too thin and that lost revenues from charitable contribution deductibility would be better spent on governmental social welfare programs. His … Read more

The Challenge of Defending the Normal

We continue to reel from the blows dealt by the Culture of Death. The attack on life, and particularly on the family, that institution which is the incubator and nourisher of life, continues relentlessly. Our states and our courts have now given the name of “marriage” to a fundamentally unnatural and barren relationship that was … Read more

Mother Church and the Nanny State

That the film about the Cristero Rebellion, For Greater Glory, has been news to many highlights the appalling ignorance of history in our culture. That isolation from the human experience has made it easy to confuse conscience with emotion and think religion is irrational. George Neumayer has written, “In one of his memoirs, Obama uses … Read more

We Hold These Truths

Whenever the topic of personal liberty is debated, it is unfortunate that the liberty to do evil is often what is at stake. On one side there are libertines, or those who are at best morally indifferent, arguing that morally offensive behavior ought to be legal and even socially acceptable; on the other side there … Read more

Is the Nanny State a Lesbian?

An address by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on gay rights as a priority of U.S. policy deserves far more attention than it’s gotten up to now. As a statement of the views of the Obama administration, Clinton’s remarks were a remarkably candid—and remarkably chilling—exposition of official determination to make the world safe for LGBT … Read more

You’ve Gone the Wrong Way, Baby

Tobacco is dirty weed. I like it. It satisfies no normal need. I like it. It makes you thin, it makes you lean, It takes the hair right off your bean, It’s the worst darn stuff I’ve ever seen. I like it. —Published in the Penn State Froth, 1915.   The above poem, quoted by … Read more

Item added to cart.
0 items - $0.00

Orthodox. Faithful. Free.

Signup to receive new Crisis articles daily

Email subscribe stack
Share to...