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Pillar

Politics & Law

The third pillar of a decent society is a just system of politics and law. Such a government does not bind all persons, families, institutions of civil society, and actors in the marketplace to itself as subservient features of an all-pervading authority. Instead, it honors and protects the inherent equal dignity of all persons, safeguards the family as the primary school of virtue, and seeks justice through the rule of law.

The Founders’ Gift and Its New American Enemies 

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Statue of liberty

The Founders’ Gift and Its New American Enemies 

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Religious freedom for everyone, everywhere? 
law and morality

The Moral Limits the State Cannot Create 

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The rule of law endures only where law acknowledges that the state is not the highest authority.
John Witherspoon

John Witherspoon and the Spirit of 1776 

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Few Christians in the eighteenth century wore as many vocational hats, and accomplished as much in so many different fields, as John Witherspoon. The question is whether all these hats held together. I think they did, perhaps just barely, but they did. And I think they tell us something important about the founding of this country and the spirit of 1776. 
The Parthenon

Who’s Afraid of Classicism?  

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Padilla Peralta wants something, but the way he’s attempting to get it could potentially cost him, and all of us in academia, what little we already have.
Supreme Court

Judicial Vacancies and the Wheel of Fortune 

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Once a judge is relying on the odds, he has relinquished his agency over the decision. It is no longer a function of rational deliberation but a function of Fortune’s wheel, whose spin the judge has no choice but to accept.
parent and child

Will Parental Rights Finally Receive Proper Constitutional Protection? 

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Mirabelli’s reaffirmation of parental rights as genuine constitutional rights is not hypocritical; nor does it open the door to judicial activism. On the contrary, it’s an important and much-needed corrective to erroneous and historically inaccurate interpretations of Pierce that read it so weakly and narrowly that they render it practically impotent as precedent.

After Easter: The Political Theology of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of the Messiah

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When we think of Jesus as providing a model for behavior for the religious, private, or civic realm but not for politics and government, we adopt a fragmentation utterly foreign to the New Testament.
Iran war

On the Killing of Enemy Sovereigns 

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This war does not appear to be genuinely defensive against an imminent threat; it is rather undertaken to prevent a threat that might, at some time in the future, materialize, and is therefore a “war of choice.” Natural law just war theory acknowledges no such category: justified warfare is always a matter of necessity. 
language

Language and the Politics of Power 

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Increasingly in our society and politics, the value of life has been subordinated to the aims and narratives of manipulative discourse. The Holy Father is right to warn us of this danger.
religion and politics

When Religion Becomes Obsolete, Politics Tries to Save Us 

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When politics becomes our highest love, it will also become our cruelest disappointment, leaving our homes colder, our holidays lonelier, and our common life harder to sustain. 
Zohran Mamdani

Zohran Mamdani Is Not Radical Enough 

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Dorothy Day’s radical call to love rings louder for us today than Zohran’s Servile State solution ever will. 
US war in Iran

America’s Conflict in Iran Is Not a Just War 

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Unlike the Iraq war, Trump’s Iran war is being fought without a clear plan or congressional approval. For these and other reasons, it plainly does not meet the conditions for a morally acceptable war, as set out by traditional just war doctrine. 
Cicero

Cicero on Our Disengaged Age 

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The collapse of the late Roman republic came not in an instant but over time: through a period of profound internal fracture and systemic chaos. As we approach the 250th anniversary of the American founding, we find ourselves in a similar period of civic fragmentation and disengagement.
Statue of liberty

Make America Good Again 

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America is great because America is good: that is the proposition. But is the proposition plausible? And “good” means ... what?
Supreme Court

Originalists Need the Classical Legal Tradition 

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The conservative legal movement has come far, but we’re just getting started. 
poetry

Poetry and the Politics of Aspirational Conservatism 

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More than the squabbles of party politics, conservatives ought to be concerned with defending our civilization’s way of life and the ordered liberty that sustains it.
Pascal

Pierre Manent’s Challenge to Modern Atheism  

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Pascal’s theology is sublime, beautiful, and all-consuming. But it reflects the life of a celibate mystic rather than that of the statesman who must transmit Christian culture. Statesmen after all must wager. 
Migrants

The Catholic Church and Care for Migrants  

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The Church has a long tradition of generous care for migrants, while allowing room for legitimate regulation.
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

The Ninth Circuit’s Religious Freedom Coup 

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For years, perhaps the most serious threat to religious organizations’ freedom to live according to their faith has been the ever-growing specter of nondiscrimination laws. The Ninth Circuit’s decision here offers perhaps the strongest opportunity we have seen yet to affirm the constitutional right of religious organizations to hire according to their faith. 
right vs left

Identity and Recognition Are the Polarized Polis’s Chief Virtues 

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Tocqueville’s insight anticipates Taylor’s: a democracy built on dialogical identity easily turns into a society where individuals depend on the crowd for self-definition.
inspiration for Rivendell in LOTR

Political Philology: J. R. R. Tolkien Against the Leftists 

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If I may be permitted to so step beyond my bounds and attempt to speak for what Tolkien’s advice might be, I believe his recommendation would be this: teach, read, and write poetry, for that is the first step toward viewing language as not merely a tool for communication, but a science, an art, a heritage, and a way in which man resembles God. 
Declaration of Independence

Without Virtue, Freedom Fails 

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We cannot expect to preserve a liberal democracy until each generation learns to embrace its civic responsibilities.
Catholic Church

A Secular Love Letter to Catholicism—and Hope for a Catholic Presidency 

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Because it is politically heterodox, Catholic social thought can speak to voters across the political spectrum.    
political wars

Why Are Conservatism and Modern Liberalism at War? 

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To end the mirror wars we must turn toward the light they reflect—the transcendent good in which freedom and order, truth and love find their unity.

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