Man is a rational animal. That doesn’t mean he’s always reasonable, but it does mean that his actions are guided by what he believes about the world and how it hangs together. Reality comes first for him, or at least it should and often does. That is one reason love of God—of the Most Real [...]

There seems to be a lot of overlap between people who don’t believe in spanking, and people who don’t believe in sin. This is a long-standing theory of mine, but it was especially confirmed in recent weeks following the kerfuffle over NFL superstar Adrian Peterson’s severe spanking of his 4-year-old son. To be clear, I [...]

It can be disconcerting to watch the ranks of people walking along the city streets with wires in their ears, oblivious to the lives being lived around them, and tuning in only to what they choose to hear.  It is surprising that more of them are not run over by taxis, but even if they [...]

There was a great hullabaloo recently in our local press about the awarding of a medical degree to one of my neighbors. She had decided, at the age of forty, to become a physician. There was a lengthy interview, accompanied by a beaming photo. The awed journalist asked how on earth this belated vocation had [...]

The exercise of discipline is often a painful experience — not only for the one disciplined, but for the one who disciplines him as well. Although the Vatican did not intend to cause Father Curran distress (indeed, the Sacred Congregation made every effort to find a mutually acceptable solution), no one can deny that his [...]

You learn, to your surprise, that surgery is indicated. Minor, but requiring general anesthesia, and there's the rub. To you, the prospect of extinguishing the light carries with it the real possibility it will not go on again. But there seems no option; the alternative is to risk detection of cancer. So you agree, and [...]