R.R. Reno is editor of First Things.

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Planned Parenthood and Other Catholic Volunteer Opportunities

The Biology Department of the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota publicizes volunteer opportunities on their webpage.Good idea. We should all be encouraged to serve the common good as best we can.  Continue Reading »

10 Dec 2014

Sex on Campus

I haven’t followed the details of the UVA sex scandal. Unless one is an administrator with responsibilities for such things, keeping one’s distance from the facts is probably best for one’s moral health. Indeed, we didn’t need this particular news story to know that there’s a problem. We’ve embarked on a de-regulation of sexual relations. In the official ideology of our time, our bodies are machines available to provide us with pleasure. The same holds for the bodies of others, limited only by consent. Today, at places like UVa this is the unquestioned and unquestionable orthodoxy. Continue Reading »

1 Dec 2014

Marriage Pledge is Not an Imperative of Conscience

Last week, I wrote in favor of the Marriage Pledge and suggested that signing a government-provided document designating Spouse A and Spouse B is contrary to conscience. Ed Peters has rightly criticized me. There is nothing intrinsically evil about politically correct euphemisms in government documents, including ones pertaining to marriage. And thus there’s no complicity with evil when a pastor, priest, or laymen sign such documents.  Continue Reading »

24 Nov 2014

The Role of Government Marriage?

Ryan Anderson and others (including Doug Wilson) wonder how I can support the Marriage Pledge. It asks pastors and priests to refrain from signing government provided marriage certificates, but allows and even encourages the newly wed couple to march down to the courthouse to get the government contract. Continue Reading »

21 Nov 2014

Responding to Sullivan on the Marriage Pledge

The Marriage Pledge is not spiteful, as Andrew Sullivan suggests. Nor is it an act of aggression designed to destroy the “middle ground” Sullivan would like us to agree to occupy as members of a liberal society. On the contrary, it is an effort by Ephraim Radner and Christopher Seitz to encourage the Church to act in a way that is true to the meaning of marriage. Continue Reading »

20 Nov 2014

Nicholas Kristof’s Argument for Sterilization

Nearly a century ago, Margaret Sanger promoted birth control as a way to put an end to poverty. That meant educating the poor in its methods. But she knew that this would be successful only to a certain degree. There’s a significant portion of society, made up of “irresponsible and reckless ones having little regard for the consequences of their acts, or whose religious scruples prevent their exercising control over their numbers. Many of this group are diseased, feeble-minded, and are of the pauper element dependent upon the normal and fit members of society for their support. There is no doubt in the minds of all thinking people that the procreation of this group should be stopped.” Continue Reading »

13 Nov 2014

Sixth Circuit Sanity

It was a relief to read the measured, intelligent analysis of Judge Jeffrey Sutton. He wrote the majority opinion for a Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals panel. It determined that state laws defining marriage as between a man and a woman do not violate the U.S. Constitution. Continue Reading »

7 Nov 2014

The Concordat Analogy

Yesterday I wrote about the likelihood that many Catholic institutions will capitulate to the spirit of our age, which has made gay rights into the Great Cause of justice. Alan Jacobs zeros in on an analogy I make to the Catholic Church’s 1933 Concordat with Germany negotiated by Eugenio Pacelli, then Vatican Secretary of State. (In my original article I called him Pius XII. It was not until 1939 that he was elected pope.) He finds the analogy unhelpful and suggests that I am blind to the imperatives of charity. Continue Reading »

4 Nov 2014

Gay Rights and Ideology

Two stories have been in circulation. One concerns a subpoena issued in Houston demanding all sermons and memoranda that touch on homosexuality from a group of pastors. The other involves Donald and Evelyn Knapp. Ordained ministers of the Four Square Church, they run the Hitching Post Wedding Chapel in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Local officials have informed them that anti-discrimination laws require them to perform same-sex weddings. 
Continue Reading »

19 Oct 2014

Catholicism, Sex, and Marriage

The Extraordinary Synod on the Family issued an interim “relatio” yesterday. This is a document meant to sum up the current state of discussion among the gathered bishops. George Weigel has written a definitive refutation of the media’s spin, which, predictably, interprets every sane (and commonplace) pastoral observation about the need for the Church to welcome sinners and accompany them in their efforts to seek sanctity as a sea change in Catholic teaching on sex and marriage. Continue Reading »

14 Oct 2014