Brandon McGinley

Living on the Other Side is the Church at her best, giving up none of her authenticity while carefully and lovingly embracing this culture, this place, these people. Continue Reading »

The logic of liberalism has seeped into the faithful’s understanding of God and his Church through every imaginable pore. Continue Reading »

Everybody has a master, I suppose. Continue Reading »

We seem to have internalized the liberal view that the Church is just another institution among many, and that what she has to offer is parochial, not universal.  Continue Reading »

It is not an act of humility but one of mutilation to amputate one’s faith in order to fulfill some secular political mandate—whether it be a bureaucratic directive or a party’s litmus test. Continue Reading »

The rightful place of the Catholic is always alongside the poor, the marginalized, the excluded—all the more so because Catholics have traditionally been overrepresented among the poor, the marginalized, and the excluded in American society. Continue Reading »

Several weeks ago, I was having dinner with friends in the town of Bridgewater, PA—a sliver of land at the confluence of the Beaver and Ohio Rivers northwest of Pittsburgh. As tends to happen whenever orthodox Christians gather, the conversation turned to cultural decline. As we discussed the latest outrages, though, I couldn’t help but observe our surroundings.We were on the patio of a casual restaurant within sight of the gentle Beaver River. Between us and the riverbank was a pristine lawn, crisscrossed by walking trails. The weather was mild and clear. Around us, people conversed contentedly while dining wholesomely and affordably, in perfect security. To all appearances, here was the very image of the good society: pleasant, safe, and prosperous. Continue Reading »

Never has a piece of writing spread across my social media niche as prolifically as Mark Oppenheimer’s Time essay arguing for an end to federal tax exemptions for religious organizations. In the past few days, more than two dozen Facebook friends shared the article, each one appending either . . . . Continue Reading »

I’m never more of a partisan than on election night. All my misgivings about the Republican Party dissolve and I become like a sports fan tabulating my team’s essential statistics. Then Wednesday arrives, and the spasm of partisan enthusiasm fades into a renewed realism. Continue Reading »

In the past two days, federal courts have redefined marriage in two states: Oregon and Pennsylvania. No one should be surprised by this; though the Supreme Court’s decision in Windsor v. U.S., which struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act, could be shrewdly navigated so as to permit state definitions of marriage to survive scrutiny, it was unlikely that any federal judge would bring attention to himself by defying the accumulating mass of pro-same-sex marriage rulings. Continue Reading »