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Silhouette of sad teenage girl looking out the window on a cold autumn day

Sending the Wounded to the Front

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The stories of Chloe and other detransitioners are the ultimate rebuke to the arrogant claims of activists and the medical groups they have captured.
Florenz, Galileo Galilei

Eppur si muove: The Legend of Galileo

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From beginning to end, the Inquisition’s actions were disciplinary, not dogmatic, although they were based on the erroneous notion that it was heretical to claim that the Earth moves. But opinions of theologians are not the same as Christian doctrine. The error the Church made in dealing with Galileo was an error in judgment. The Inquisition was wrong to discipline Galileo, but discipline is not dogma.
happy parents sitting on sofa and looking at little kids playing with domino tiles at home, 1950s style

Conservatives Can Do Better Than ’50s Nostalgia

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The 1950s have two main nostalgic pulls on conservatives: aesthetic and technocratic. Both rely on a constructed past that has little to do with the realities of American history—and therefore neither type of ’50s nostalgia offers serious solutions to the country’s problems. In fact, early conservatives like William F. Buckley, Robert Nisbet, and Russell Kirk saw the postwar liberal settlement of the ’50s as a betrayal, not an embodiment, of the best of the American political tradition.
The relationship between argument and democracy, however, did not begin with the American founding but with the ancient Greeks: there is an unmistakable tie between the agora (the birthplace of Greek democracy), and the development of rhetoric as a field of study.

To Be Human Is to Argue

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The modern story of “argument” might seem troubling to many. Debate too often seems emotion-driven, and laden with fallacies and quarrelsome noise. By exploring the significance of argument for both individuals and society, Lee Siegel’s Why Argument Matters reminds us why to be human is to argue—and why that is something to celebrate.
Woman reading book at evening at home close up

The (Female) Intellectual Life

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With All Her Mind, in compiling the hard-won wisdom of women from many different states in and ways of life, encourages its reader to cultivate compassion toward women whose balances of work, family, children, and study look different from her own. The intellectual life need not be a source of competition among women, but instead ought to find a place in each of our lives.
Brand new mother and child after delivery in hospital room

Practicing Pro-Life Medicine: A Conversation with Dr. John Bruchalski and Leah Sargeant

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It’s very rewarding to practice excellent women’s health that is collaborative, integrated, holistic, and listens to their bodies. Children are not STDs. Fertility is something to be collaborated with rather than suppressed.
Silhouette of man's head in front of computer monitor light at night

Sex Work Is Scaling

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As the sex work industry grows and moves online, it encourages a transactional view of relationships in mainstream culture.
Digital painting of crowds cheering or demonstrating with waving USA flags in Washington DC, digital artwork with matte painting

National Conservatives for the Status Quo?

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By deviating from the American political tradition, national conservatives double down on rather than challenge many of our political ills.
woman in warm sweater reading book at home

The Scandal of Virtuous Reading

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In The Scandal of Holiness, Jessica Hooten Wilson suggests that we shift from passive, uncritical acceptance of cultural mores and entertainment to active formation in virtue, leading toward a life of sainthood. To do this, we need stories of sanctity that do not elide the messiness of everyday reality. These stories are neither saccharine accounts of cheap piety nor dry philosophical and moral theories.
Black mom playing in bed with her infant, kissing baby

We Don’t Need to Keep Reminding Women That Motherhood Is Hard

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Constant reminders about the challenges of parenthood, though seemingly innocent or even compassionate, can do harm.
ChatGPT image

Exclusive: ChatGPT Admits That Elective Abortion Rests on Moral Contradictions

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We already know that ChatGPT’s coding is biased. But even ChatGPT recognizes that logic is logic, and it is willing to admit the contradiction in the pro-choice position. If only our human interlocutors would be so honest.
John Witherspoon statue in Princeton

Damnatio Memoriae: Princeton’s Witherspoon Statue Controversy

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Aside from a certain gruff nobility, the statue of John Witherspoon in Princeton is not overly stylized; he’s human, which is to say, flawed. A hero in bronze he may be, but with feet of clay, Witherspoon is worth remembering as he is portrayed there.
Benjamin Franklin

The Bookshelf: Writing in the Mirror

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Whether it is an account of one’s whole life, or a memoir focused on a certain period or aspect of one’s life, or a published journal or diary, the author of an autobiography is too deeply interested (in both senses of that word) to achieve a really critical distance. Can the autobiographer, the memoirist, or the diarist be trusted?
football or soccer fans at a game in a stadium

Why the Super Bowl Is Good for America

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Don the jersey, embrace the pageantry, and invite friends over for seven-layer dip.
Stock Market Graph next to a 1 dollar bill (showing former president Washington). Red trend line indicates the stock market recession period

The Morality of Money

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Finance facilitates the collaboration necessary for the functioning of a free market economy, but does it do so in accordance with concepts of justice and fairness?
offices, towers, city

ESG, Woke Capitalism, and the Virtue of Humility

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ESG, the investment ideology that considers environmental, social, and governance issues, is an important part of the story of the rise of woke capitalism. Resisting ESG will require business leaders not just to communicate the good that they do, but also to cultivate the virtue of humility, which clarifies the importance of restraint and the meaning of community.
Priest celebrate mass at the church and empty place for text

Self-Exclusion and the Wounds of Sin: A Response to Cardinal Robert McElroy

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By its nature, the wound of sin involves rejection of the way laid before human beings by God. In rejecting the guidance of the natural law, or of revelation, human beings render themselves incapable of fully realizing the offer of friendship that God extends when he offers them a way to their own fulfillment. Sin damages the person and the person’s capacity for relationship with God simultaneously. It is thus a radical self-exclusion from the communion of those whom God has called both to fulfillment and to perfect communion with Him.
Two gold rings on wooden

Gay Marriage, Civil Rights, and Christian Virtue: An Interview with David French

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“What I see in modern America is something maybe a little bit different than what other folks see. I think the nation vis-à-vis its laws is far more just than it has been at virtually any point in its previous history. Racial discrimination is outlawed de jure. You have an extension of the First Amendment to all American communities. You have greater religious freedoms in a concrete way than we’ve ever enjoyed in the history of the United States. We have a lot of problems, but we’re better than we’ve been.”
School boy memorizing the lesson in classroom

There Is No Thinking without Memorizing

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We deploy faddish educational notions such as “critical thinking” to the detriment of our students. What is often derided as “rote-learning” is actually essential to sophisticated analysis. Memorization creates a base of knowledge. We draw upon this foundational knowledge as we engage in more conceptual thinking.
Male person with gloved hand turns off the intravenous drug system to the unconscious patient.

Even “Compassionate” Killing Is Wrong

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Human societies have generally acknowledged that unjustified killing is wrong. When they make exceptions for the sake of expediency, they need to be reminded of what the moral law requires. This is true regardless of whether the inquiry concerns the killing of others or of oneself.
Blurry shadow in front of the window - Concept of mystery and inner disorder

The Long-Term Harms of Anonymous Sperm Donation

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In attempting to create families, doctors across the country have created people who, on a fundamental level, do not know who they are. No one gets to choose the family into which they are born. But medical professionals have willingly abetted the conception of human beings in circumstances marked by deceit; or, at the very least, marked by deliberate withholding.
Indiana State House, Indianapolis

Abusing Religious Freedom for Abortion Access

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States would have to choose between religious liberty laws and every other law they would enforce, nearly all of which burden someone’s conscience and limit behaviors some people consider obligatory. What appears to be a victory for religious liberty is really just the opposite.
Photo from the march for life

The Pro-Life Movement Still Deserves a National Strategy

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A national demonstration like the March reminds politicians that pro-life voters don’t intend to take the Dobbs victory as an opportunity to pack up and go home. Pro-lifers should push for change at the state level. But if pro-life Americans wish to remain an influential interest group at the national level, they would be wise not to send the message that federal politicians can brush abortion policy aside indefinitely as a matter for state lawmakers to sort out.
Photo of Leo XIII tomb

Liberalism and Leo XIII

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Not all democracy is like that of the French Revolution; not all liberalism is unhinged from virtue and moral norms; and a free economy is anthropologically sound and therefore more conducive to human dignity and flourishing than a state-controlled one. Democracy and freedom come as a package.
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