The Holy Father has spilled a great deal of ink impressing upon the First World its duty to welcome economic migrants. Now he’s turned to spilling bronze. The Vatican has become the new home of a lumpy brown mass depicting a crowd of emaciated figures evidently waiting for their chance at a better life. Many [...]

Here we go again. The extreme transgender ideology that threatens academic freedom in the United States—the belief that men who “identify” as women are literally the same as biological women and must be treated as such under all circumstances—is now seeping into the judiciary. In a ruling that is gaining notoriety worldwide, a British judge [...]

While traditional Catholic morality might have been suitable in pre-modern times, the circumstances of modern (or postmodern) life make it impractical, unreasonable, and cruel—or so argue the progressives. The world has changed since 1800, they claim, beginning with the Industrial Revolution; societies and their moralities must change with it. Once-unimaginable advances in technique (the term [...]

We hear a great deal nowadays about criminal justice reform, but it may not be addressing the most serious problems of American criminal law. We hear about such things as police brutality, racial bias, excessive sentences for drug offenses, and problems of mass incarceration. The validity of these claims is certainly debatable. Even if they [...]

By their own admission, the United Nations plan to impose abortion—which it calls “reproductive health”—on the whole world. It’s a project 25 years in the making, beginning no later than 1994 at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo. (It was here that Catholics and Evangelicals were awakened by Pope St. John Paul [...]

Perhaps the most mesmerizing scene in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings is the moment when the Lord of the Nazgul faces Gandalf at the fallen gate of Minas Tirith. Gandalf did not move. And in that very moment, away behind in some courtyard of the City, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed, recking [...]

At the end of the Second World War, the revered crown of St. Stephen, the first Christian monarch of Hungary, was smuggled out of Austria by the U.S. Army to prevent its falling into Soviet hands. It remained at Fort Knox in the United States until it was handed over to the communist government of [...]

The postmodern world is fond of congratulating itself that, owing to the withering away of ancient superstitions and the final triumph of science, religious warfare of the 16th and 17th centuries can never be renewed in Western societies. What can we possibly be thinking? Religious warfare has not only reestablished itself: it’s doing so in [...]

Editor’s note: this article originally appeared in the May 1988 print edition of Crisis. It has been edited for brevity. Many people have asked me what it was like to live through the nomination and hearings of my husband, Robert Bork. I usually answer that it was like being besieged in a battle where the reinforcements [...]

In case you haven’t noticed, the United Kingdom is going through a collective political meltdown. The 2016 referendum on Britain’s membership in the European Union proved to be the pulled thread that is unraveling the seemingly seamless garment of the British constitution. Now as the shrewd observer will know, unlike the U.S. Constitution, the British [...]

From the beginning of Donald J. Trump’s quixotic presidential campaign, political and media elites have attempted to browbeat the “dangerous” new nationalist movement like an unruly child. First, it was National Review’s “Conservatives against Trump” symposium, which excommunicated its Trump-voting readers for their infidelity to the dogmata of movement conservatism. Now a similar proclamation has [...]

In 2013, Pope Francis sonorously and rightly enjoined the bishops of the world: “Avoid the scandal of being ‘airport bishops’!”  An almost obsessive compulsion of some prelates to travel beyond their own dioceses evokes the absenteeism of the Middle Ages, when many bishops and abbots were seldom seen among their own people. The Pope travels [...]

Debates are about making points, yes, but they’re also about comportment. The exchange between Sohrab Ahmari and David French, which took place at the Catholic University of America last Thursday, centered on just this point. It was a debate about debates—namely, “How do we best engage with our opponents on the Left?” As it happens, [...]

In early August, the Freedom from Religion Foundation—secularist bullies who go around the country seeking especially to pressure local governments to eliminate anything that even remotely suggests a favorable official view of religion—suffered an unaccustomed defeat in the courts. They usually get cash-strapped local governments to do what they want by threatening legal action, whose [...]

Editor’s note: this article originally appeared in the November 2001 print edition of Crisis. In 1789 George Washington prayed in St. Paul’s Church, on what we now call lower Broadway, on the day of his inauguration as the first president of the United States. The churchyard was already old. On September 11, 2001, several new [...]

“If someone calls it socialism,” said Rev. William Barber at the August meeting of the Democratic National Committee, “then we must compel them to acknowledge that the Bible must then promote socialism, because Jesus offered free health care to everyone, and he never charged a leper a co-pay.” Barber’s statement brought secular progressives to their [...]

[This is part two of Michael Warren Davis's two-part reflection on the Ahmari-French debate on the future of Christian conservatism. Read the first part here.] The second major point of contention between Sohrab Ahmari and David French is on the question of civility. To again quote from Mr. Ahmari’s first shot across the Frenchists’ bow: [...]

There’s something precarious in writing an article about a debate. One runs the risk of demonstrating why one wasn’t invited to take the stage. Still, Thursday’s exchange between Sohrab Ahmari of The New York Post and National Review’s David French ought to be weighed carefully by every Catholic journalist, statesman, lawyer, activist, and voter. These [...]

In three amicus briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court filed last month, the bishops and Catholic educators—together with other major religious groups—urged the Court to uphold the meaning of “sex.” It’s one little word. But if the Court gets it wrong, our religious freedom could be quickly eroded. And while all Catholics and Catholic institutions [...]

Evanston, Wyoming, is a town of 12,000 people in the extreme southwestern corner of the state, approximately 80 miles east of Salt Lake City. It was founded in the late 19th century as a railroad town. Its economy was built on ranching and mineral extraction. Folks in Evanston are mostly Mormon, but the town has [...]