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DEI

DEI in Retreat? 

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If the DEI label is losing traction and institutions are substantively evolving, what, if anything, will replace DEI?
bookshelf

The Bookshelf: Hayek’s Vision of Human Complexity 

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Hayek’s thoughts on thought itself ground his classic warning against the dangers of the temptation to control the freedom of others as they make their own way in that complex world of human action and interaction that surpasses our ability to understand. 
Vatican

Of a New Pope and New Things

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Ten things I’ve learned from Rerum Novarum after thirty years of teaching it 
pain meds

The Invention of Happiness and the Palliative Society

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Sound religion overcomes and cures pain and suffering when it can justly be solved, but sound religion notes the inevitability of suffering, the moral inadmissibility of some “solutions,” and does not think pain renders a good life impossible. Suffering can be redeemed and caught up into a pattern of goodness, beauty, and purpose; even into a flourishing life.
Catholic Church

Bishop Barron, the Religious Liberty Commission, and the Transpolitical Mission of the Church

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Bishop Barron's participation in the White House Commission is not in service of a legislative agenda, but of a deeper witness: that religious liberty is not the product of political will, but the recognition of an antecedent truth about the human person. For this he is uniquely well-suited.
mother and children

Why Have Children? The Global Population Decline and Human Happiness 

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Happiness is not an achievement; it’s a gift. Children are a blessing. Forget your smartphones, ambitions, and quibbles with your neighbors. Take the risk, open your heart, and the boundless love of a child will move you to tears.  
Mother's Day

Mother’s Day and the Foolishness of Speech

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As a mother, I am coming to understand more concretely—and thus more deeply—what self-emptying love must look like, and thus I am coming to appreciate Christ's coming more deeply.
down syndrome

Accepting Our Children, Accepting Ourselves 

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Keeping the person at the center of concern maintains our focus on his or her good rather than on our own fears and insecurities. And, each time we practice accepting another in the fullness of their fragility, we come to a healthier, more honest acceptance of ourselves, too.  
President Donald Trump

The Trump Coalition and Its Discontents 

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If nothing else, the ANES data should be yet another reminder that there is no longer any “great silent majority” of socially conservative voters. We are, at best, coalition partners with a political movement that has the tendency to default into a lifestyle libertarianism and the move-fast-and-break-things ethos of the tech bro.  
The Bible

A River for the Lamb and the Elephant

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Despite some missteps and misplaced emphases, Gordon has given us the best and most enjoyable history of the Bible yet produced.
School

Toward a Renewed Framework for Teacher Preparation

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Reorienting our teacher education systems around personalism is no quick fix. But by doing so, we can reorient teachers and schools toward an authentic valuing of human dignity.
bookshelf

The Bookshelf: Betrayal and Witness

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Beyond the testimony of a man that he had once betrayed his country, and knew of others who had done so, is the testimony of a human being who has passed through a fire and lived, though scorched and scarred for life, and has come to believe that there is authentic freedom only under God, not in rebellion against his works.
climate change

Cass Sunstein’s Sledgehammer Approach to “Climate Justice”: A Christian Response

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It is undeniable that the Church calls Christians to aid those who suffer. But real demographic and political realities frame this responsibility.
patriarchy

The Problem of Patriarchy

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Regressing to patriarchy’s more material view of the family will only exacerbate our culture’s spiritual challenges.

A Closer Look at Transgender Pronouns within the Military

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So long as the military permits the use of transgender pronouns, it has two basic choices: require their use or leave that use optional. Either choice has consequences for military readiness, given aspects of American society in general and military culture in particular.

Catholicism and Immigration: A Rejoinder to Cory and Sweeney

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Nowhere do I say, nor would I say, that differing prudential judgments about immigration should be “shielded from objective moral scrutiny.”  In no way would I place this area of public policy “outside the realm of things one can objectively morally evaluate.”

Pope Francis and Accompanying Each Other Along the Path to Truth

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Many people—young people especially—are eager for caritas in veritate, and the pope sought to teach it to them through many of the themes of the pontificate: accompanying others, recognizing the concrete circumstances that we fallen human beings can find ourselves in, and always being witnesses to God’s infinite mercy. 

Pope Francis: A Candid Assessment

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Francis was much more interested in solving pastoral problems than in theological doctrines. But his responsibility was to safeguard the Church’s doctrine and to cherish and promote its theological reasoning. It is a cause of enduring sadness that he failed to do so.

Pope Francis: A Pontificate of the Heart

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Rather than emphasizing the church as a sacramental reality imbued with the presence of God, or a conception of the church as a pilgrim people, Pope Francis voiced a preference for the church as a field hospital with a battlefield task: Heal the wounds! Start from the ground up. Encounter those on the margins. Accompany those who feel left out. 

Being There: Pope Francis’s Death and the Future of the Catholic Church

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Believing in something like the Catholic Church and her deposit of faith presupposes a non-contestable core that is insoluble to the political waters that seem to suffuse everything these days. And that, it seems, is sufficient unto the day.

Commemorating—and Choosing Again—the Freedom of Redemption

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In these next days we celebrate our deliverance; in so doing we remind ourselves of our meaning, purpose, and dignity. But more: we offer hope for the “multitude” who would return to Egypt, return to slavery, simply because of its luxury and comfort, which seems to them better than the bread of life.

The Dark Night of Disenchantment

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Many religious people lament that the contemporary world has hidden God from their sight. But what if that spiritual darkness is precisely where God is waiting for us?

From Anchor to Anvil: America’s Drift Away from the System It Built

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The U.S. does face real challenges: a large structural fiscal deficit and unacceptably high poverty in rural areas and disadvantaged urban communities. But trade restrictions won’t solve these problems—they’ll make them worse. Barriers reduce efficiency and shrink the economic pie.

Civic Education Is a Prerequisite for Liberal Education

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As Americans begin to familiarize themselves with this new front in higher education—one that can no longer be marginalized or dismissed out of hand—it is my hope that wrongheaded media criticism will eventually give way to the clear positive impact that schools of civic thought are having.
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