The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is a bloated, corrupt organization teeming with left-wing bureaucrats who don’t have the Church’s best interests at heart. Crisis Magazine has said so on several occasions. It remains our opinion that all Catholics—laymen, priests, and bishops—would be better off without it. That said, the USCCB’s committee elections at this … Read more
“If you think that your priests and bishops are not saints, then be one for them.” — Robert Cardinal Sarah I know that many of our readers were irate over USCCB president Archbishop José Gomez’s statement on the 2020 election. Many of you were angry that he referred to Joe Biden as the second Catholic … Read more
Last Saturday, after all major news media outlets announced Joe Biden’s presidential victory, ebullient Biden supporters (or more precisely, Trump opponents) took to the streets to celebrate. Mr. Biden obliged the crowd of supporters—oddly, the largest crowd he has ever had—and gave a speech accepting the job of president of the United States. Few people, … Read more
A friend of mine, an early activist in the Christian Democrat party in El Salvador, told me a story that I have been thinking about lately. Before I had ever gone to that country as a missionary, the parish school building served as a polling place. When they were setting up for an election, my … Read more
G. K. Chesterton once wrote, “The unconscious democracy of America is a very fine thing. It is a true and deep and instinctive assumption of the equality of citizens, which even voting and elections have not destroyed.” I wonder what Mr. Chesterton would have said about mail-in ballots. After so many hopeful prayers and earnest efforts … Read more
“We are a working-class party now. That’s the future.” — Senator Josh Hawley I’ve held off on writing a post-election column, hoping against hope that the votes would be counted quickly and fairly. I suppose that was naïve. At this rate—and regardless of who “wins” in the end—half of the American people will feel cheated … Read more
“Enemy-occupied territory: that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.” — C. S. Lewis “A Christian has only to be in order to change the world, for … Read more
As Election Day approaches, Americans of all political stripes are preparing for the worst. Police in major cities already anticipate even more riots and protests erupting and storeowners are boarding up their stores. As some commentators have pointed out, the country has not been so polarized since the election in 1860 that immediately precipitated the … Read more
Before there was Hunter Biden, there was Neil Bush. Neil is the third son of the late George H. W. Bush and younger brother of George W. Bush. In 2003, Neil’s wife Sharon filed for divorce, leading to a cascade of information about how deeply compromised he was by the Chinese Communist Party. The year … Read more
A friend of mine recently called the police to lodge a complaint about a Halloween display in her neighborhood: a life-size figure of the horror-movie slasher, Freddy Krueger holding the bloody, butchered body of a baby in his clawed hands. The police responded that the display was not illegal in any way. My friend, intrepid … Read more
At the end of September, Public Discourse published a series of columns about voting for Trump. Or not. Mostly not. Mostly ewww. Brandon McGinley argues the usual yadda-yadda that Christians have no home in either political party. I don’t know about you, but my home is where my family lives. I don’t look for a … Read more
[Editor’s Note 5/18/23: This article was originally titled “Voting for Abortion is a Crime Against Humanity” but the author asked it be retitled to better reflect his views.] Abortion is an intrinsic moral evil. It involves carrying out or arranging to carry out the deliberate killing of an innocent human being. An intrinsic evil is … Read more
As the grandson of immigrants, I was raised to think that to be Catholic automatically meant being a Democrat; after all, it was the Democratic Party that had been so involved in assisting the newly-arrived with possibilities for financial security and upward mobility. The first presidential election in which I could vote (as a seminarian … Read more
We’ve been hearing a great deal of noise lately from Democrat politicians about Judge Amy Coney Barret, in whose dark soul they are horrified to find that “the dogma lives loudly…” So intolerable is the threat she poses, they tell us, that in thwarting her nomination to the Supreme Court they are engaged in the … Read more
Arthur Koestler is most famous for his Darkness at Noon, a book written in 1939 whose subject was the Stalin show trials of the thirties, when the Dictatorship of the Proletariat was exposed as the tyranny of a very bad man. Koestler wrote many other books, however, and one that I just read, Arrow in … Read more
Early in the 2016 presidential primary season, I declared that I would never vote for Donald Trump. Even though I wouldn’t ever consider Hillary (I’m Catholic, after all), I could not bring myself to vote for the GOP nominee, either. So, I voted third-party, and for three reasons. First, I considered Mr. Trump a wild … Read more
“I am not the Catholic candidate for president,” John F. Kennedy famously declared. (At least he was honest.) Throughout the 1960 election, JFK struggled to overcome the old Know-Nothing myth that, were the United States to put an Irish Catholic in the White House, he would have a direct telephone line to the Holy See. … Read more
“Day to day pours forth speech,” we read in the Psalms; and so it does. Having read the news these past few mornings, and listened to some of the broadcasts, I’ve since been preoccupied by two questions. The first concerns Hillary Clinton: Why is the lady not in jail, or at least in the dock? … Read more
Remember the “Occupy Wall Street” movement? Theirs was a protest against “the One Percent.” However, the One Percenters begged to differ. They have responded with a revolution of their own, a revolution from above, the one currently under way in the United States. The objective of the revolution is to ensconce and enhance the power … Read more
According to devotees of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s personality cult, the ideal Supreme Court Justice is many things. She’s well-educated and professionally successful. She’s articulate. She possesses gravitas. She balances career and family. She cares for the vulnerable. Yet Democratic senators and progressive pundits insist that Amy Coney Barrett is definitely not that woman. But, eager … Read more