May 15, 2012
by Christian Tappe
Every Sunday, from the kickoff to the final Hail Mary attempt as time expires, Americans glue themselves to their TVs and cheer on their team. Football may not quite be America’s Pastime, but it’s certainly America’s Game. And yet, the most popular, the most watched, the most lucrative sport in the United States has a [...]
April 27, 2012
by Christopher O. Blum
It is now twenty years since the publication of Centesimus Annus, yet only halting steps have been made towards an adequate reception of it. In his concluding remarks to that great encyclical, the Holy Father warned that the Church’s social teaching was no mere theory, “but above all else a basis and a motivation for [...]
April 24, 2012
by Howard Kainz
Recent decades are rife with “opposed, but...” statements from Catholic politicians who maintain that they do not wish to “force” their own personal opposition to abortion on their constituencies. Must they then stand aside, with their hands folded, while pro-abortion politicians grant a “license to kill” to pregnant mothers and medical practitioners? It is high [...]
April 3, 2012
by Dale O'Leary
Pope Benedict XVI and others have recently drawn attention to the fact that simply putting forward the Church’s unchanging teachings on marriage and sexual morality puts a person in the position of being accused of “hate.” In particular, GLBT (gay lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered) activists are demanding that Catholics and those of other religions change [...]
March 9, 2012
by Michael Cook
Not long ago, Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer, together with a research assistant, Agata Sagan, proposed a “morality pill” in a column in the New York Times. They speculated that moral behaviour is at least in part biochemically determined. So why not engineer moral behaviour with drugs? Here is the scenario that they paint: If continuing [...]
March 8, 2012
by Robert R. Reilly
When do you know it's over? When do you know that civilization has collapsed inwardly to such an irreparable extent that the next stop is barbarism? When is that Weimar moment? Certainly, the legalization of abortion was one such moment, as barbarism is defined as the inability or unwillingness to recognize another person as a [...]
March 2, 2012
by Anthony Esolen
Many are the strange things going on in the Unreal Hotel. In Room 101, a man and woman are lying together, and in more ways than one. In Room 102, it is a man and a man. In Room 103, a fellow named George, who has grown weary of his life, is meeting surreptitiously with [...]
January 20, 2012
by Stephen Herreid
When Ray Comfort comes forward with a documentary against abortion, he must be commended by his fellows in arms against the killing of children in the womb. He has done a service in the fight against the worst evil that the present generation faces. Accordingly, it is not the intention of this article to downplay [...]
October 20, 2011
by Peter Kreeft
Colson’s Law is named for the man I learned it from: Chuck Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries. It is one of the fundamental laws of human history. It has always been true, and it always will be true, unless human nature itself changes in its very essence. It is the law of four “C’s”: [...]
June 6, 2011
by Fr. James V. Schall
Two years ago, I wrote a column for this site titled “Graduation 2009.” As I come to the end of this scholastic year, I would like to return to the same topic: What do college graduates learn before they graduate? Depending on the student and the faculty, the answer ranges from “not much” to “an [...]
January 7, 2011
by David R. Carlin Jr.
I'm a lifelong Democrat who is now badly disillusioned with the Democratic Party. Why? Because the party has become America's anti-Christian party, a party that is dominated not just by atheists and agnostics (the agnostics being of that species whose skepticism is the virtual equivalent of atheism), but by atheists and agnostics having an anti-religion [...]
November 18, 2010
by Deal W. Hudson
At present, more rap stars have been killed than abortionists. I was sitting on an airport shuttle bus when I overheard two men in their thirties discussing the second murder of a rap singer. "People need to see that this isn't just about music," one said. I think I know what he means. Taste never [...]
November 17, 2010
by John Zmirak
Last week, I pointed readers to the fascinating debate between Robert Spencer and Peter Kreeft on the subject of Islam, promising to offer my own reflections later. If you haven't yet watched the debate, go bookmark it now, and when you sit down to watch it, prepare to be . . . unsettled. Pour yourself [...]
November 4, 2010
by Margaret Cabaniss
Over at the Public Discourse, Micah Watson argues that the "you can't legislate morality" argument in politics is one of the most specious around: The governing authority’s power to pass and enforce laws takes account of the beastly side of human nature while holding that some wrongs are so fundamental that they demand a robust [...]
September 17, 2010
by David R. Carlin Jr.
Two basic needs that we human beings have are the need for meaning and the need for morality. We need to feel that our lives are meaningful, that they have a purpose. And we need to have an authoritative moral code that tells us what's right and what's wrong, what's good and what's bad. Absent [...]
August 27, 2010
by Russell Shaw
Two men wearing tennis whites walk out on the court. Opening a folding table and chairs, they sit down and start to play chess. An attendant rushes up and says, "Sorry, gentlemen, this place is for tennis. You can't do that here." Looking up with a scowl, one of the men snaps, "This is how [...]
August 9, 2010
by Robert R. Reilly
When do you know it's over? When do you know that civilization has collapsed inwardly to such an irreparable extent that the next stop is barbarism? When is that Weimar moment? Certainly, the legalization of abortion was one such moment, as barbarism is defined as the inability or unwillingness to recognize another person as a [...]
July 20, 2010
by Eric Pavlat
For someone always interested in the issues of religion and morality in comic books, today's visit to the comic book news websites was a definite payday. First up is a self-contained graphic novel just released earlier this month, Ghostopolis, by Doug TenNapel. He's the writer/artist who wrote some of my favorite Christian comics, including Earthboy Jacobus, [...]
July 3, 2010
by Rev. John Jay Hughes
This weekend, we Americans celebrate 234 years of national independence. For most of that time, we rejoiced that two broad oceans protected us from foreign wars and enemies. No more: The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, removed forever any doubt on that score. What is the appropriate response? To that question there is [...]
June 19, 2010
by John Rossomando
The cry, "That violates the separation of church and state!" has been the centerpiece of the secularist drive to marginalize Christianity in the public sphere since the 1940s. The real -- and often neglected -- question is what precisely that separation means and how it should be interpreted and applied. The secularists' interpretation of the [...]