In the 1970’s, the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin and his episcopal allies advanced the notion that Catholic politicians should not be judged only, or even primarily, by their position on abortion. Abortion was merely one strand in a rich and finely woven “seamless garment” of Catholic social teaching in defense of life. Numerous other issues, [...]

It has been just six years since I wrote Defending Marriage: Twelve Arguments for Sanity, warning against the fantasy that two members of the same sex can marry one another, when they cannot even have sexual relations but can only mimic them. I founded my arguments not upon Scripture or the teaching of the Church—indeed I did not [...]

With the exit of effectively everyone but Bernie Sanders from the Democratic presidential race, the path to the party’s nomination has been cleared wide open for Joe Biden. It’s now one-on-one, Biden vs. Bernie, with Biden almost certain to win out. If you’re a betting man, the odds are literally and overwhelmingly on Biden—87 percent, [...]

Scholars and pundits for generations have been making comparisons between the United States and the late Roman Empire. Such analogies date back to America’s Founding Fathers, notes Andrew Sullivan in a recent piece for New York Magazine. These men were deeply conscious of the decline of the Roman Republic, brought on by bitter and bloody [...]

Recently, my wife explained to a friend that having a newborn child was like having a dog—only except ten times more difficult. Her explanation made me think. Dog parks, pet-friendly cafes, and “dog moms” abound. When we lived in Nashville, it seemed like there were more pet services than day cares. It’s almost as if [...]

The self-destruction of the Democratic Party is being accomplished so quickly and thoroughly that even Democrats are noticing it. Certainly, the increasing internecine bitterness of Democratic debates is evidence that something is deeply wrong. The problem isn’t just that socialism is growing like mold on the planks of the party platform. There’s an even deeper, [...]

On February 13, 2020, the House of Representatives passed the dull-sounding H.J. Res 79. Despite its name, this resolution indicates a dangerous attempt to disregard constitutional order and states’ rights for the purpose of codifying a progressive dogma: the alleged “right” to abortion. For progressives, the inconvenient truth is that abortion rights in America stand [...]

When asked about the political plight of pro-life Democrats, presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg responded with what I call the “pro-choice fallacy.” According to Mr. Buttigieg, “I know that the difference of opinion that you and I have is one that we have come by honestly, and the best I can offer… is that if we [...]

On the weekend of February 8, 2020, a storm ripped through Ireland. Storm Ciara was one of the worst of its kind for many years. Its winds, snows, and driving rains caused havoc with landslides and flooding. At the same time, a political storm ripped through the Irish political landscape. Sinn Féin up-ended the political [...]

Etienne Gilson was one of the clearest thinking philosophers of the 20th century. As a good philosopher, naturally, he fully understood the importance of reason, a power that is often downgraded or even dismissed in the modern world. In an address he gave at Harvard’s Tercentenary Celebration (1936), he made the following statement: “Realism always [...]

I’m ambivalent about that most common pro-life argument: that, because life begins at conception, to abort a pregnancy is to commit murder. That’s not to say I don’t believe it’s true. On the contrary: it’s not only true, it’s obviously true. It’s one of the few points upon which credible scientists and ethicists can agree. [...]

Editor’s note: this article by the founder of Crisis first appeared in the March 1993 print edition of this magazine. More and more, through deception and euphemism, the American people are being led by their government into the primitive and barbaric practice of abortion. They are being led to think of abortion as a moral good, a [...]

I don’t watch Hollywood award shows anymore, although there was a time in my life when I did. In my early college days, I would turn on the television to gape at the pre-awards red carpet glamor, and then chow on popcorn while relishing every acceptance speech over the next few hours, all the while [...]

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the January 1988 print edition of Crisis Magazine. It has been edited for brevity. CRISIS: Is abortion really a political issue? It seems not. After all, politics is a dispute over the arrangements by which a community lives. Abortion raises a prior question: who belongs to the community? [...]

The feminist writer Florynce Kennedy once said, “If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.” She didn’t give the left enough credit. Abortion has become a kind of “sacrament” because women can get pregnant. Abortion has morphed from a taboo tragedy to a constitutional right: a sine qua non of the Democratic Party, [...]

Ireland, particularly its government, is now in the strange position of being simultaneously hostile and indifferent to Catholicism. An indication of the seemingly indifferent attitude toward the Catholic Church by Irish officialdom occurred in connection with the recent canonization of John Henry Cardinal Newman. Newman was the founding rector (or president) of University College Dublin. [...]

As the United States has grown more and more ideologically polarized, the divide has been magnified on the Supreme Court. The divisions on the Court made Justice Anthony Kennedy the most powerful man in America by 2018 because he was often the Court’s swing vote on important decisions. Where the swing vote of the Supreme [...]

Many moons ago, even before Roe v. Wade, I taught an ethics class that consisted of 16 students. At the outset, I used an anonymous questionnaire to learn about their respective stances on abortion. The class was split in half, with eight accepting abortion and eight opposing it. By the end of the course, all [...]

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 [...]