June 17, 2018. Why are we celebrating “Father’s Day?” Despite the overwhelming evidence that the presence of fathers in intact families pays incalculable social dividends in terms of future generations and the communities in which they live, fatherhood as such is increasingly marginalized by culture-makers. Case-in-point: I spent time the last two weekends watching the [...]

What do The New York Times, transgender activists, the German bishops, and liturgy have in common? Let me tell you. Jennifer Finney Boylan, who writes for The New York Times on “family life, parenting, LGBT issues,” launched into a screed against Ryan Anderson’s new book, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment. The [...]

A colleague told me of an intriguing incident at a conference of accountants that were studying recent changes in tax regulations. One speaker gave a talk on recruiting new staff and how to deal with turnover. An attendee then asked a question remarking that from the context of her presentation, it seemed companies were facing [...]

When the Church “blesses” someone, it usually does so for one of two reasons: to ask God to protect that person from evil, or to confirm that person in the good. Because our spiritual lives are dynamic—at no point are we “holy” enough to rest on our laurels—those two reasons are usually two sides of [...]

Earlier this week I published a piece at Crisis for which I owe readers an apology and explanation. In 30 years of commentary writing, I’ve never had to do this, which surely has been God’s grace, given my many bouts of arrogant stupidity, but maybe the good Lord gave me this one for some badly [...]

The German bishops pushed hard for “accompaniment” of the divorced and “remarried” at the Synods of 2014-15. The new idea percolating in the German Bishops Conference is whether the Church should have a “blessing” for homosexuals who “marry” or have civil partnerships. Bishop Franz-Josef Bode of Osnabrück, the Conference’s Vice President and chair of its [...]

Question: What do the push to admit those with irregular marriages to communion, the effort by Fr. James Martin to bless same-sex relationships, and the movie Silence have in common? Answer: They all assume that the demands of Christianity are too hard for ordinary people to live out. In the movie Silence, which is based [...]

An ominous portent haunts the dissenting opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges. Chief Justice John Roberts, relying on the old maxim that it’s valid to infer from what has happened to what will happen, predicts the inescapability of sequels to the legalization of same-sex “marriage.” The SCOTUS, he avers, will be unable to discount future petitioners [...]

The position of Pope Francis in regard to homosexual “marriage” has not changed since he became a bishop in Argentina, according to John Allen Jr. on the Crux news site last year. Allen writes that, while the pope is against homosexual "marriage," he is willing to tolerate homosexual acts under the title of “civil unions.” [...]

The current push for same-sex “marriage” in Australia is threaded with ironies in the social, political and religious spheres. When Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull declared a postal vote—which is now in progress (results will be released on November 15), the “pro same-sex marriage” crowd lambasted the democratic vote as hateful; they prefer an imposed parliamentary [...]

There are Christians of my acquaintance who are against the legalization of same-sex “marriage” and its threat to religious liberty, but cannot see how their attendance at a gay friend’s wedding would undermine those values and their Christian witness. Quite the opposite, they believe that declining the invitation would be hurtful to their friend and [...]

It was the latest defection from biblical orthodoxy by a prominent Evangelical Christian leader. When columnist Jonathan Merritt asked Eugene Peterson whether he would perform a same-sex “wedding” for a Christian couple of “good faith,” The Message bible author answered, “yes.” Peterson’s flip on gay pseudotrimony created an immediate firestorm in the Christian blogosphere, prompting [...]

The recent April 26 Religion News Service commentary by Fordham University’s Fr. Bryan Massingale is titled “As a Catholic priest, I am against an executive order on religious liberty.” I found it to be breathtaking—in much the same way as a steel-tipped boot can take your breath away as it lands in your gut. The [...]

Recently in Ireland a body called the Irish Citizens’ Assembly took steps long feared by supporters of the right to life. The assembly is not a regular constitutional component of the Irish government. Rather it is a body called into being by the government to make suggestions as to potential constitutional amendments for the legislature [...]

Like unsuspecting characters in an Agatha Christie novel, we are all witnesses to the commission of a murder still in progress, carried out in slow motion. It is happening so slowly, and its ongoing occurrence is so protracted, so pervasive, and so familiar that we haven’t sensed the magnitude of the violence being done or [...]

As I clicked through and read the outrage-mongering BuzzFeed article that launched the sham controversy over the personal beliefs of Chip and Joanna Gaines, co-hosts of the show “Fixer Upper” on HGTV, I was transported back to 2012, and another event that prompted national outcry against the alleged enemies of diversity, tolerance, and open-mindedness. On [...]

Buzzfeed reported last week that HGTV stars of the show “Fixer Upper,” Chip and Joanna Gaines, belong to a church that is “firmly against same-sex marriage.” Of course, it may come as little surprise that an Evangelical church in Waco, Texas holds such a view. After all, no more than 27 percent of white Evangelical [...]

The Jesuit magazine America carries an editorial in its current issue titled “Unjust Discrimination.” The editorial refers to the alleged injustice committed by church officials when they dismiss employees who formally enter into same-gender civil "marriages." The editorial argues that the Church should not automatically dismiss but rather dismiss only when there was an instance [...]

“How do I answer my children’s questions about what they hear on the news?” “How do I parent in a post-Obergefell world?” “My childhood was far from innocent. How do I raise my children?” Parents want answers: I’m writing here to propose a few thoughts on human nature and to suggest some reading that puts [...]