Christopher Tollefsen

Those who seek to advance the Catholic Church’s teaching regarding the sanctity of life confront both new challenges and opportunities in the wake of the June 2022 Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. On the one hand, many people in the U.S. and in other developed nations have . . . . Continue Reading »

Over and over again our bishops' failures of judgment have been ignored as “private” issues. Continue Reading »

I write to explain why I and my family will no longer be contributing to diocesan appeals for financial assistance. Continue Reading »

The controversy over Live Action’s tactics in exposing Planned Parenthood’s abuses is now well known. And in the face of that controversy, some who are willing to countenance lying for a good cause have seemingly abandoned argument in favor of dismissiveness. Lila Rose’s lawyer, for example, was quoted in USA Today as saying that critics had made “much ado about nothing.” Such an attitude to a matter of grave concern”what it means to defend the lives of the unborn in a fully upright way”is unworthy… . Continue Reading »

At long last, the United States is rightly celebrating a key success in the struggle against international terrorism: We have brought to justice Osama bin Laden, longtime head of al-Qaeda and a prime architect of the 9/11 attacks. No defender of democracy or the lives of the innocent can be sorry to hear that bin Laden will no longer be able to lend his spurious moral authority to calls for jihad against the West… . Continue Reading »

In the Shadow of Progress: Being Human in the Age of Technology by Eric Cohen Encounter, 180 pages, $21.95 One of the more interesting rock groups of the 1990s was a trio called Morphine, which consisted of a drummer, a saxophonist, and a bass player named Mark Sandman. Sandman’s bass guitar . . . . Continue Reading »

New biotechnologies promise to revolutionize human existence¯not only by delivering therapeutic treatments and cures but also by offering physical and mental enhancements: creating stronger bodies and more powerful minds for ourselves and for the children we carefully select. Biotechnology will . . . . Continue Reading »

For several hundred years, beginning in the fourteenth century, Spanish kings prohibited the breeding of mules, a practice that was thought to jeopardize the purity of Spanish horses. The Jesuit political philosopher Francisco Vitoria, lecturing in the first half of the sixteenth century, evidently . . . . Continue Reading »