American Politics
A selection of recent articles on this topic
The Mystery Parenthesis
In advance of Pope Francis’s visit to Ireland for the World Meeting of Families, I was invited…
The House of God Will Not Be Closed
Hilaire Belloc once said of the Church: “No merely human institution conducted with such knavish imbecility would…
Capital Punishment and the Sex Abuse Crisis
Many sense that the hierarchy’s rejection of capital punishment and their complacency about clergy sexual abuse are…
Fackenheim’s Law and the Current Catholic Crisis
The medieval Jewish sage Maimonides counted 613 commandments, or mitzvot, in the Law that God gave his…
Lo, I Am With You Always
When I was a boy, my parish priest was a child molester. This was more than 15…
Fathers, Help Us
Four years ago I pleaded with the princes of the Church, asking them not to change Catholic…
Compelling Tolerance
Jack Phillips barely had time to catch his breath. Less than a month after the Supreme Court…
A Crisis of Infidelity
At the heart of the recent Catholic scandals is infidelity—literally the lack of faith. There are priests,…
When Older Tech Is Better
In an age when every piece of writing shared on the internet requires a visual image, generic…
The End of the Imperial Episcopate
The Empire—in all its forms—is long gone. Christendom is dead. The Church is reeling from grave scandal,…
Why Men Like Me Should Not Be Priests
I am the sort of man the Catholic Church says shouldn’t be a priest. I experience what…
Not-So-Old Mars
In 2013, Bantam published an anthology of new stories entitled Old Mars, edited by George R. R.…
Cleansing the Church of Clerical Sacrilege
It is time for clergy and laity to begin a movement for the purification of the Church.…
A Failing Episcopal Establishment
We are witnessing the collapse of the episcopal establishment in the United States. In one sense, the…
An Appeal to the Cardinals of the Catholic Church
Pope Francis has revised the Catechism of the Catholic Church to read, “the death penalty is inadmissible…
