Abiding by moral rules, especially when they are explained meaningfully and mercifully, gives teenagers swimming in a sea of relativism and nihilism a “moral vocabulary.” Sympathy isn’t enough. People need norms. Continue Reading »
An important new book has appeared that carefully evaluates Francis’s pontificate, and provides something the pope—for all his good deeds—often hasn’t: context and clarity. Continue Reading »
When will we have a chance to piece back together a conservatism and a Christian worldview with something edifying to say about all of creation? Continue Reading »
Early modern Europeans freed themselves from the burdens of a corrupted medieval world by laughing at it. Continue Reading »
For a European government to bring a blasphemy prosecution in 2017 is incongruous, to say the least. Continue Reading »
If authentic naming or identifying is a strictly private, self-governed enterprise, what is there that is truly public? If my public persona is entirely under my control, and if I can die to my old self and rise to my new self any time I choose and in whatever manner I choose, and if indeed I am not to be burdened by my old “dead” name, as the Dean of Law says, in what sense is my persona public? Continue Reading »
For Lent 2016, I adopted a new Forty Days discipline in addition to intensified prayer, daily almsgiving, and letting my liver have its annual vacation: I quit sports talk radio, cold turkey. Continue Reading »
The heart of the matter is that, according to the teaching of the Church, there are norms that are valid without exception and not subject to individual discernment. The German bishops contradict this. Continue Reading »
In the summer of 1941, at the height of Germany's success in the war, Bishop von Galen decided to take a public stand against the Nazis, even if he had to do it on his own. Continue Reading »
As the rain fell tropically into our garden and the children disappeared for the night, we settled into something of a rhythm, watching and scooping as the sky greyed over and dozens of birds provided a backing chorus. Continue Reading »
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