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Integralism and Catholic Doctrine

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Catholics today are not required to believe in a Catholic confessional state. If anything, they are required to believe that everyone has a right under the natural law to religious freedom, that the state has no authority in religious matters, and that coercion of religious activity by the state is morally wrong. In short, integralism is contrary to Catholic doctrine.

The Strange Case of William Shakespeare and Donald Trump

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Stephen Greenblatt’s new book is broad-ranging, accessibly written, and nominally dedicated to an interesting topic: tyranny in the work of William Shakespeare. Unfortunately, too much of the author’s energy is dedicated to expressing disdain for a particular contemporary politician in a way that detracts from his declared purpose.

Scouting Should Teach Universal Moral Values, Not Relativistic Ideology

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The progressive left is working to overcome what it perceives as the out-of-date premises of the Judeo-Christian ethic previously reflected in scouting.

Secular Materialism Can’t Make Sense of Reality

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Rumors of God’s death may have been greatly exaggerated, but the prevalence of a materialistic philosophy that cannot give an adequate account of human freedom and moral responsibility has put in jeopardy many of the core ideas at the base of our civilization. Without metaphysics we are left simply with physics, and physics is about power, leverage, and force.

An Exchange on Happiness, Freedom, and Spiritual Formation

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How should we understand hierarchies, markets, freedom, happiness, anthropology, and spiritual formation? Three Christian thinkers respond to each other.

Happiness, Freedom, and Spiritual Formation: A Response to Reichert and Maier

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Market economies are not inherently hostile to Christian spiritual formation. And expanding the scope of Church authority into the temporal realm is no substitute for traditional spiritual practices such as prayer and fasting.

A Memento Mori for Today: Lessons from Thomas More

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Thomas More’s dying words teach us that zeal for God is compatible with loving, even zealous, service to less than utopian political rulers and realms.

Learning to Hate our Sin without Hating Ourselves

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The current debate about gay Christianity traces back to a centuries-old dispute between Protestants and Catholics about the doctrine of man and the doctrine of sin. Roman Catholics do not regard involuntary desire for sin (concupiscence) to be sinful. Reformed Protestants do.

What It Means To Love Our Country

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Loving America well means taking her seriously—working to preserve what is lovely about her and to fix what is not.

The ​Myth of the “Desistance Myth”

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Gender dysphoric children who are treated using a “watchful waiting” approach largely desist, no longer identify as transgender as adults, and accept their bodies as they are. Those who are subjected to medical intervention do not.

How to Avoid Another Souter. . . or Stevens. . . or O’Connor. . . or Kennedy

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We can’t undo the past, but we can avoid repeating its mistakes. Here’s how.

Algorithmic Man: Yuval Noah Harari’s Timid Transhumanism

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The title of Yuval Noah Harari’s book, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, is misleading. While the book uses a future-oriented rhetoric, it is actually less about the future than it is about what the author takes to be the nature of life itself: namely, that we are all just bundles of algorithms.

Physician Assisted Suicide and the Rise of Suicide Cults

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Assisted death proponents argue for physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia on the grounds of promoting autonomy and suspending suffering. Suicide groups like the Dutch Coöperatie Laatste Wil ask the next logical question: why is physician involvement needed at all?

Presidential Self-Pardons, the Framers at Philadelphia, and the Work of Originalism

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As the late Justice Scalia was fond of pointing out, the views of individual lawmakers in the midst of debate are not themselves the law we must interpret. Neither are the votes taken in a deliberative body rightly viewed as votes on anyone’s interpretation of the text under discussion. The text that they passed, not what they said about what they passed, is the law.

In Defense of Spiritual Friendship and Revoice

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The process of sanctification in this life is not necessarily about eradicating fallen desires. Rather, we form Christian character when, relying on God’s grace, we refuse to consent to temptations to sin, either in thought or in deed.

Jordan Peterson on Cain and Abel

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Spurred by social comparison, Cain and Abel represent rival responses to the suffering inherent in the human condition following the rise of self-consciousness. Abel’s suffering leads to his self-development as a warrior. Cain’s suffering leads to envy, malevolence, and murder. This essay explicates and develops Peterson’s interpretation of the story.

Self-Creation or God's Creation? Mistaken Identities and Nietzsche's Madman

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Those who believe they are living in a created cosmos inhabit a different psychological world from those living after the death of God. Those whose identity is rooted in the divine order of existence are divided from those whose identity is self-created.

Scientists Have Unwittingly Revealed that the Obergefell Decision Did Nothing to Diminish Sexual Minority Distress

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A new study is being used to make the claim that allowing conscientious objection to same-sex marriage leads to increased rates of mental health problems in sexual minorities. But is that really what the data show?

Rainbow Soccer Jerseys Don’t Reduce Harassment. They Provoke It.

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The US National Soccer Team’s rainbow jerseys are provoking and inflaming the controversies of sexual politics. Soccer’s governing bodies should follow their own rules, which were designed to foster inclusivity, and ban political rainbow jerseys in international play.

Fr. James Martin, Friendship and Dialogue, and the Truth about Human Sexuality

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It is not merely that we “reject the sin, but love the sinner,” though we do that; we reject the sin because we love the sinner—radically love him, willing his good for his own sake, affirming the teaching of the Church in all its richness because we recognize that it is liberating and life-affirming.

Filling in the Blank Left in the Masterpiece Ruling: Why Gorsuch and Thomas Are Right

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The majority’s refusal to address the free speech issue in Masterpiece explains the intractability of debates over the scope of its free exercise ruling because, surprisingly, the two issues are linked. Two concurrences implicitly address the free speech issue. There the conservatives’ case is stronger, and supported explicitly by Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor in dissent. In light of it, the Court’s Masterpiece ruling should provide robust protection for other creative professionals.

Locke and the Founders Agree: The President Can Pardon Himself

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The pardon power is the most significant and strongest power of the president, and the Constitution places almost no limits on it. In using it, the president can unilaterally nullify the legitimate authority of the legislative and judicial branches.

Masterpiece, Marriage, and Bigotry: The Court’s Ruling Is More Robust than Many Acknowledge

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State officials and judges cannot comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Masterpiece simply by articulating facially neutral reasons for decisions that punish people for acting on the understanding that marriage is a man-woman union.

Why the Hippocratic Oath Still Matters

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The Hippocratic Oath offers physicians of any generation guidelines, proscriptions, and prescriptions about how to be a good physician. We may not agree with all of its conclusions, but if we unthinkingly dismiss them, we do so at our own peril.