Michael Pakaluk

David Bentley Hart has somehow twisted St. Basil’s warnings against the Devil’s trickery into—what Basil himself would call—support for the Devil and his purposes.  Continue Reading »

Even an apparently simple Gospel such as Mark’s is extremely interesting intellectually, if one approaches it as true. Continue Reading »

We can expect that any bishop who has fully embraced the attitude that punishment is never retributive will fail to protect his flock by appropriately punishing offenders. Continue Reading »

“The death penalty is inadmissible” invites the questions: By whom? On whose will? Continue Reading »

The fruit of contraception is abortion; we should stop insisting that the two are separable.  Continue Reading »

Development of doctrine is not itself a doctrine, but a theory, and there are several such theories. Continue Reading »

The Pontifical Academies inviting abortion-promoting overpopulation alarmist Paul Erhlich amounts to formal cooperation in serious evil. And the scandal is not only moral, but scientific. Erhlich is a laughably bad scientist. Continue Reading »

There are statements in Amoris Laetitia which, although they admit of a true interpretation, more easily suggest a false one, and are likely to be used to subvert the teachings of the Church. Continue Reading »

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 readers as problematic. This chapter attempts to identify the patterns of reasoning by which a prudent . . . . Continue Reading »

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 same-sex relationships. In dealing with other forms of Christianity we accept that we should . . . . Continue Reading »