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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.

Getting the Emphasis Right on Catholicism and Immigration: A Reply to Feser

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We get truth in Feser's essay, but what is needed is “caritas in veritate in re sociali.” To write about how we ought to treat migrants and emphasize our rights while neglecting the emphasis of Scripture, and deemphasizing what Catholic Social Thought emphasizes, is to lose that intimate connection of love in truth.

How to Reason Prudentially about Immigration: A Reply to Feser

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Although Feser is right to emphasize the need for prudence, he relies on an essentially relativistic notion of prudence—one in which objective moral principles only get us so far, and the rest of the work is done by prudential judgment in a personal realm of mere “difference of opinion,” shielded from objective moral scrutiny.

Just Statecraft and the Problem of “Peace”: A Response

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Wise and just statesmanship would help steer this war to a cessation by providing the security guarantees that Ukraine needs, and by making clear to Russia that Ukraine’s independence and sovereignty will be defended.

The Case for Moving a Circuit Judgeship from Delaware

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President Trump has a real opportunity to put a lasting mark on a court that’s quietly important to the country—and personally important to him—by selecting two young conservatives for its vacant seats. He shouldn’t let Delaware get in his way.

Truth, Goodness, Oak Trees, and “The Phoenix Declaration”

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The question then arises: what do we do when the two kinds of truth and goodness come into conflict, especially in education? How are we to act when someone is a good teacher—someone who is a true buddy to a child in his or her care—but who at the same time says things in the classroom that are untrue and not capital-G Good in a deep way?

Fighting Anti-Semitism Shouldn’t Harm Jewish Students: A Reflection on the Limits of Blunt Force in Academia

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Sledgehammer approaches fail Jewish students because they conflate accountability with retribution, often leaving the innocent to bear the brunt of the fallout, like blameless bystanders caught in crossfire.