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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.

When Religion Becomes Obsolete, Politics Tries to Save Us 

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school choice

Why Is School Choice So Controversial? 

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Whether state and federal governments will support school choice remains to be seen; there seems to be considerable political pressure in both directions. But on the social level, while we may continue to criticize each other’s school choices, increasing numbers of families seem unwilling to bypass choice.
Trump

Trump v. CASA, Inc. and Constitutional Hardball 

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President Trump plays extreme hardball by American standards, some of it blatantly authoritarian. Conservatives lose credibility when they deny this. But Trump’s election and reelection were, in part, a reaction to decades of undemocratic progressive change in the courts, bureaucracy, and public education—itself a kind of hardball. Liberals who deny or downplay these phenomena only feed populist anger.
UNC Chapel Hill/The University

Colleges Get Their Comeuppance . . . and Then Some 

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While Trump’s ham-fisted assault on higher ed was justified, that doesn’t mean his tactics are—or that this will end well. 
Justice Sotomayor

Changing the Subject: Hidden Assumptions in Justice Sotomayor’s Defense of Gender Transition Medicine  

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Justice Sotomayor’s analysis depends on many assumptions that she does not articulate or defend. This lack of clarity leads to unnecessary confusion and inconsistency. In more ways than one, Justice Sotomayor is changing the subject.  
Calvary

The Natural Law Is Not Enough. The Natural Law Is All We Have. 

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We must rely on natural law, even as we confess that it cannot bear the full weight of moral resolution. Why? The natural law is not enough, yet the natural law is all we have as denizens of a fractured age. 
Marx

A Guide to the Horrified and Mystified 

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“Reason and revelation,” “God’s creation and the natural order of things,” “the biological nature of human beings,” and “Natural Law”: these are Mahoney’s lodestars and the criteria by which he judges not just ideology’s falsehood but its destructive evil. 
US, Iranian, and Israeli flags

How to Start Another Unconstitutional War 

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Why should we be faithful constitutionalists on matters of war powers in the first place (as opposed to being hard-headed “pragmatists”)? Why should we care about the Constitution, about this violation of it, by this president, at this time?   
PEPFAR

We Can’t Fix the Deficit by Taking Medicine from the Poorest of the Poor 

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Over the past few decades, we have seen incredible progress in the fight against HIV, hunger, and other infectious diseases. We could choose to either accelerate that progress and demonstrate American greatness, or to shrink back from the moral responsibilities that love places on us. 
child on a computer

(Toward) Three Cheers for the Supreme Court  

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Here’s to the good ruling protecting children from pornography. 
assisted suicide

Britain’s Sentimental Suicide 

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The English have lost their ancient grit, and with it, their decency. 
SCOTUS

All Litigation is Death Penalty Litigation 

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If the Court wants to stand apart from the toxic politics of the moment, it needs to focus on where the law leads, not where the DHS flight is headed.  
American politics

Political Ignorance and the New Tragedy of the Commons 

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When it comes to politics, everyone seems fully convinced that they have genuine knowledge. Many even maintain a dogmatic confidence about their political views. What explains this? 
medical aid in dying

Demanding Murder; Needing Heroes

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I do not know what it is like to be bedridden for years. I hope I never will. I also wish I never knew what it meant to live through the disappointments, fears, abandonments, or heartbreaks I’ve already endured. But I am glad nobody suggested to me that those pains were too much to bear.
Catholic Church in Jerusalem

The Church, the Jews, and the Development of Doctrine 

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What is settled is that the Jewish people are beloved by God, that Catholics are spiritual Semites as they are grafted into Israel for their very existence, and that Catholics are committed to listening and learning from the Jewish people as they enjoy God’s covenantal fidelity and love. 

From the Archives: The Pursuit of Happiness Rightly Understood

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The right to the pursuit of happiness is coherent only in the full theological context of the Declaration of Independence.
Obergefell case

The Legacy of Obergefell, Ten Years Later 

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The single most durable legacy of Obergefell, it would seem, is the damage it has done to the culture of marriage and family in the United States. 
Medical aid in dying

New York’s Latest Assault on Human Dignity 

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Genuine compassion calls us to a richer vision of end-of-life care than merely eliminating suffering.
Confessional

Obeying God Rather Than Men 

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In the end, it’s not so much that the Church refuses to comply with such laws as that she cannot comply. It would be contrary to who she is.
Ukraine

The Catholic Church and the Real History of Ukraine 

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The Ukrainian Greek Catholic faithful, both lay and religious, are hard at work helping their country to forge a future worthy of human dignity.
US Department of Education

Dismantling the Department of Education Is Not Enough

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For long-term success in protecting local control of public education, the National Education Association must go.
conservatism in Canada

A Conservatism of Ideals 

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This is the conservatism we need: not nostalgia and anachronistic social conservatism, not progressive liberalism with better branding, but a bold conservatism of clearly articulated ideals for human flourishing.
LDS Church

Moral Agency and Sustainable Liberalism: Rauch’s Proposed Liberal-Christian Alliance

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For believers eager to have a voice in a secular liberal society or simply to find peace and a home in such a society, and thus to avoid dispiriting “polarization,” Rauch’s appeal appears to resonate with a surprising power. 
Cross

The Dynamics of Exemption and Establishment 

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Thinking through the relationship of exemption to political establishment is worthwhile apart from the result in any given case, especially for those of us who are both religious believers and American citizens. 
SCOTUS

Defending Parental Rights in the Modern Age: Pierce v. Society of Sisters at 100

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The natural law account of parental rights is a substantively robust and reason-based position—one that must be defended for all Americans of all faiths and shades of belief.

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