Archive
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Articles
Theological Fraud
One benefit of doing academic work in accounting ethics, as I have done, is that one gets a sense of the high standards of truthfulness that public companies must...
The Story of St. Mark’s Gospel
An interview with Michael Pakaluk, author of The Memoirs of St. Peter, a new translation and commentary on the Gospel of Mark (Gateway Editions, $18.89). Catherine Pakaluk: Mark’s Gospel...
Capital Punishment and the Sex Abuse Crisis
Many sense that the hierarchy’s rejection of capital punishment and their complacency about clergy sexual abuse are not unconnected. What I want to say on the matter falls under...
Cardinal Dulles’s Dubia
Let us allow another cardinal to be, in effect, the author of several dubia. Writing in First Things in 2001, Avery Cardinal Dulles asserted: “The Catholic magisterium does not,...
The Link Between Contraception and Abortion
I call the link between contraception and abortion an unpleasant fact, not only because both are unpleasant things, but also because pro-lifers often consider it unpleasant, because unfriendly, to...
Four Ideas About Development
I wish to draw attention to four obvious ideas about what is called “development of doctrine,” which, despite their obviousness, are very often overlooked. The first is that development...
The Pontifical Academies’ Mess of Pottage
In a recent article at Crux, I argued that invitations by the Pontifical Academies to Paul Erhlich and John Bongaarts amount to formal cooperation in serious evil and cause...
The Dangers of Half-Truths
You’ve read it again and again. Finnis and Grisez asserted it. Joseph Seifert said the same thing in his critique. So did the forty-five theologians. It’s implicit in the...
The Other Footnote in Amoris Laetitia
Pope Francis’s recent Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia is, for the most part, a beautiful presentation of Catholic teaching on marriage and the family. But its eighth chapter strikes many...
The Folly of Lifestyle Ecumenism
Lifestyle Ecumenism” is the view that Catholics should practice today a kind of “ecumenism” towards persons in living arrangements other than marriage, such as cohabitation, common law marriage, and...