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 a European government to bring a blasphemy prosecution in 2017 is incongruous, to say the least. 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 »
Recent, ugly nonsense about those who supposedly cannot refrain from sinful sexual relations is pastoral cruelty disguised as kindness. The voice of Archbishop Chaput, by contrast, strikes a welcome and profound note of clarity and true compassion. Continue Reading »
There’s no better way to enter into the pilgrim character of the season that to participate in the 7 a.m. stational Mass led by the priest and students of the North American College. Continue Reading »
On the evening of June 17, 2015, Dylann Roof, twenty-one at the time, casually joined a group of African Americans gathered peacefully at the Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, for a Bible study. For over an hour, he participated in the discussion, and . . . . Continue Reading »
Russia has annexed part of Crimea, has usurped America’s role as arbiter of winners and losers in the Middle East, and makes trouble in Ukraine. Putin is increasingly popular as the patron of anti-E.U. populism in Europe, and Moscow tried to influence the recent American presidential election. . . . . Continue Reading »
In the tumultuous sixties, as an undergraduate at Harvard (for which I have prayed for forgiveness most of my life), I was disappointed again and again by the common Victorian and early twentieth-century convention of beginning a chapter with lush description and then abandoning it in favor of . . . . Continue Reading »
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