The underlying premise of conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat’s recent book, To Change the Church, is that the Catholic Church is conservative because her claims and demands only make sense if there is 1) a core and agreed-upon set of doctrines and 2) a clear link to New Testament teachings and to the early [...]

On a recent book review TV interview program called Q/A, Ross Douthat, author of To Change the Church, was asked about his own beliefs. He responded quite frankly that he was a Catholic. When asked why, Douthat replied that, as far as he could see, a divine intervention did take place in this world around [...]

With the New Year and the Year of Mercy begun, last year's Synod of the Family seems like old news. In a way, it's business as usual for the Church. No new teaching was proclaimed (as if a Synod even had the authority to do that!), no radical changes to Church discipline were announced concerning [...]

Few things are certain in this world, but this I believe with untroubled confidence: liberal Catholics are on the wrong side of history. Our Lord has already assured us that the Church will stand the test of time, and “the gates of Hell will not prevail” against it. Ours isn’t the first era in which [...]

About a month ago, up at 2am with a sick baby, I found myself watching a documentary about the modern-day descendants of prominent officials of the Third Reich. Entitled Hitler’s Children, it examined the lives of modern-day descendants of high-ranking Nazi officials such as Hermann Goring, Heinrich Himmler and Rudolf Höss. None of them Nazi [...]

Tourism, as anyone with a passport can tell you, has become a very big business, particularly in places that no longer thrive in the customary practices of industry and commerce.  Take Genoa, for instance, one of Europe’s largest cities along the Mediterranean coast and still the grandest seaport in all Italy, whose bright and shiny [...]

A recent CDC study found that the number of 15 to 24 year olds who reported being virgins in 2008 had increased slightly since 2002. In his latest column, Ross Douthat sees in that trend a reason for optimism -- not because he thinks we'll ever really see an end to premarital sex, but because [...]

With the March for Life just around the corner, it’s hard not to be aware of the cultural contradictions inherent in our attitudes toward life, specifically unborn life. Ross Douthat calls it the Unborn Paradox, pointing to the high rate of abortion on one hand and the unprecedented number of couples coping with infertility on [...]

Last month, I blogged about a New York magazine article on the "little-discussed consequences of the Pill": namely, that after years on birth control to avoid pregnancy, many women were finding it difficult to become pregnant later in life. In his most recent New York Times column, Ross Douthat says that the tension "between the [...]

I am pleased to report that I will be speaking about "Catholics in Political Life Today " with Ross Douthat and Melinda Henneberger on Wednesday June 2 at the Loyola University Chicago School of Law. The man to thank for organizing the talk is Dr. John Breen of Mirror of Justice fame. I can hear [...]

In reference to Comedy Central's latest low-bow to Islam, Ross Douthat writes: [T]here's still a sense in which the "South Park" case is particularly illuminating. Not because it tells us anything new about the lines that writers and entertainers suddenly aren’t allowed to cross. But because it’s a reminder that Islam is just about the [...]

Joseph saw Avatar this weekend so you wouldn't have to -- look for his review later today -- but meanwhile, Ross Douthat has some reflections in the New York Times on what he calls "[director James] Cameron’s long apologia for pantheism," that vague, naturalistic spirituality that he says has held sway with Americans for some [...]