Matthew Schmitz

Ayn Rand was no fan of C.S. Lewis. She called the famous apologist an “abysmal bastard,” a “monstrosity,” a “cheap, awful, miserable, touchy, social-meta­physical mediocrity,” a “pickpocket of concepts,” and a “God-damn, beaten mystic.” (I suspect Lewis would have . . . . Continue Reading »

Our former junior fellow and current editorial advisory council member Ryan T. Anderson appeared on Piers Morgan last night. . . . . Continue Reading »

Congratulations to our friend Russell Moore on being named head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC). His predecessor Richard Land issued the following statement : I am delighted that the Holy Spirit has led the ERLC’s trustees to Dr. . . . . Continue Reading »

A prominent anti-Islam advocate’s hatred of Islam has now led him to abandon his Catholic faith : Magdi Cristiano Allam, an Egyptian-born Muslim whom Pope Benedict publicly baptised at Easter five years ago in St Peter’s Basilica has announced that he is leaving the Church because it . . . . Continue Reading »

Jay Michaelson, contributing editor to the  Jewish Daily Forward, is rolling out a report titled ” Redefining Religious Liberty: The Covert Campaign Against Civil Rights.” In it he makes the conspiracy-minded claim that groups like the Becket Fund are part of a “Roman Catholic campaign . . . . Continue Reading »

“The Vatican has an annual operating budget of under $300 million, while Harvard University, arguably the Vatican of elite secular opinion, has a budget of $3.7 billion, meaning it’s ten times greater. The Vatican’s ‘patrimony,’ what other institutions would call an . . . . Continue Reading »

Once a symbol of the evil spirits that St. Patrick drove from Ireland, in recent years snakes have come to represent Ireland’s boom—- and now its bust : BALLIVOR, Ireland — Legend has it that St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland. The economic crisis has brought some of . . . . Continue Reading »

“Known as an incisive thinker and intensely holy man living a devout life, it is held against him that he is a Jesuit, although he has suffered the slings and arrows of Jesuits of a more ‘progressive’ bent.” -Richard John Neuhaus, Catholic Matters , 2007 . . . . Continue Reading »

Catholic leaders like New York’s Cardinal Dolan are wrongly pinning their hopes on vouchers, says education expert Sean Kennedy : My concern with people like Cardinal Dolan and other people in the church, they’ve hung their hat exclusively on vouchers. The political reality is that . . . . Continue Reading »

Ryan T. Anderson describes the impressive number of briefs that have been filed urging the Supreme Court to uphold Prop 8 and DOMA and elsewhere writes, with William Beach, that repealing the death tax is a better way to fix inheritance law than redefining marriage. . . . . Continue Reading »