Matthew Schmitz

Google’s decision to display the visage of Cesar Chavez on Easter Sunday has provoked immediate fury from many corners. The decision indeed is difficult to justify. Yet Google’s odd choice should remind us that whatever one thinks of Chavez’s politics, they are impossible to . . . . Continue Reading »

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 »