I have this weirdly clear childhood memory of an old lady sitting a few rows up from my family at Mass. She was wearing a doily on her head. I had just learned the word doily—I think—because I had seen them for sale at a home decorating store just a few days before. I asked … Read more
I once took a Soviet film class where we were introduced to the brilliant propaganda of Sergei Eisenstein and the later films of “the thaw.” The “thaw” period in the Soviet bloc was marked by films that included elements or subjects no one would have dared touch just a few years prior. What was one … Read more
The people who brought you the extra-large vaginas marching on Washington in January are at it again. They have deemed today, March 8th, as “A Day Without Women.” You can show your support for abortion, Planned Parenthood, same-sex marriage, and of all things—transgenderism, by … not showing up for work. (They wisely didn’t make female … Read more
Editor’s note: The following essay by Dr. Harriet Murphy is a response to a column published in Crisis on July 27, 2016 by Fr. Regis Scanlon OFM Cap on the possibility of a female deaconate. Fr. Scanlon’s response to Dr. Murphy’s critique may be read here. Cultural historians of the future may well say that Fr. … Read more
Dr. Harriet Murphy has taken a leap off a cliff of her own making in her broadside against my essay in Crisis on the female deaconate. She concludes that anyone (namely, me) who accepts the “literal” interpretation of 1 Tim 2:12-14—“I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man”—is somehow … Read more
Every year, pornography tangles up millions of people in its sticky spider webs. It rolls them up like hapless flies, and sucks out their brains until they are pretty much the walking dead. Christians are not exempt. And we are finally starting to admit it and talk about it. But there is still something missing … Read more
Jean Bethke Elstain, an author I greatly admire, made an astute observation when she remarked that “much that comes parading through town under the banner of ‘choice’ is actually a new set of constraints and compulsions.” “Parading” is an appropriately descriptive word since this new attitude toward choice does not come to us through a … Read more
PolitiFact put out a “fact-check” this week that purports to debunk the link between induced abortion and breast cancer. Instead, it provides a guide on how to hoist yourself with logical fallacies—namely, the appeal to authority (“it’s true because experts say so”) and the argumentum ad populum (“it’s true because lots of people say so”). … Read more
This past year America has seen a trumped up “War on Women” that claimed women’s freedom depends on “reproductive rights.” At the height of the Presidential election, the Obama camp courted the female vote with an exhortation to “vote like your lady parts depend on it” (in an e-card on the Obama campaign Tumbler that … Read more
In my work as a social conservative, I have been puzzled by some of the rhetorical strategies of my opponents. Sometimes I feel my head spinning, as if I have been going around in circles, with no obvious conclusion in sight. I have been seeking the key to understanding them, a Rosetta Stone that will … Read more
That there are psychological consequences to having an abortion have been accepted by many in the pro-life and pro-abortion camps. The psychiatrist Professor Ian Brockington has commented: “Some [post abortion] mothers feel like criminals and brood over the dead foetus. Some find it hard to look at small babies and burst into tears when they … Read more
The recent death of the American feminist poet Adrienne Rich has brought many accolades on account of her literary gifts and contribution to the feminist movement over the past 50 years. In her transformation from conventionally married mother of three sons in the 1950s, to lesbian partner and apologist in the 1970s, she became not only the … Read more
When the Obama administration made the decision not to exempt Catholic hospitals and universities from the mandate to provide insured employees with contraceptives, morning after pills, and sterilization without a co-pay, one of those consulted was Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood. Richards obviously has a special interest in having contraception covered, since dispensing contraception … Read more
Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi is fighting for the mandate in Obamacare designed to force all health care plans to provide free (that is without a co-pay) contraception, morning after pills, and sterilization. She insists that this is a battle for women’s health. Those who see this as a question of religious freedom have largely let the … Read more
President Obama’s mandate requiring free access to contraception with virtually no employer exemption is at core a consitutional threat to religious liberty, not a heated debate about contraception and Church teaching. However, it quickly turned into that. So now that we’re on the subject. Advocates of President Obama’s contraception mandate should admit that its main … Read more
According to the Christian Science Monitor, the Russian Prime Minister is seeking re-election to the presidency (for a third term) and is setting out his policy platform. The fourth of his programmatic articles trying to convince Russians to vote for him in three weeks time (or else!) deals with his plans to reverse Russia’s population … Read more
The international listening posts of the Central Lack of Intelligence Agency have unscrambled various messages that have been sent electronically from sources unknown to destinations that have yet to be specified. These messages were filtered out from the millions of electronic impulses radiating through the atomosphere. The messages were disguised and coded within the billions … Read more
Developments on a university campus suggest it is time for the Supreme Court to update its famous definition of abortion.
The primary use of sexual metaphors in Christianity is to convey the balance of activity and passivity, initiative and response, between the Lord and a human soul. We call the Church the “bride” of Christ, and Jesus the “bridegroom” of the soul precisely because of what these terms convey to psychologically normal people…
Go the website PlannedParenthood.org. You know, Planned Parenthood, around whose rippling banner enlightened opinion rallied last week when news broke that Susan G. Komen for the Cure would, in the near future, cease granting it money. PP — just a big-hearted service organization for women, fighting breast cancer and other female afflictions with might and … Read more