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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.

Originalism, the Pro-Life Cause, and the Fight for the Soul of the Court 

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To Win Back What We’ve Lost: How Defenders of Religious Freedom Are Fighting to Reclaim International Law

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Despite conceding crucial legal and political ground for decades to organizations such as Planned Parenthood, opportunities abound for defenders of religious freedom to gain that ground back.

Not Benedictine Enough: Rod Dreher’s Diagnosis and Prescription for American Christianity

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If the Benedict Option is just Christianity, it is neither inherently Benedictine nor is it optional. If it is a feeling and an intuition, it needs to be guided by careful thought.

Ruler and Guide: What John Marshall Can Teach Neil Gorsuch about the Constitution and the Natural Law

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Let us hope that, in his answers and in his future jurisprudence, Neil Gorsuch looks to the example of the Great Chief Justice and sees the Constitution as ruler, the natural law as guide.

Autonomy, Assisted Suicide, and Neil Gorsuch

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Neil Gorsuch’s book on assisted suicide highlights the danger of judges who rely on the legal and philosophical principle of radical autonomy to legislate from the bench.

Stare Decisis for Me, but Not for Thee

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Whenever a Republican president nominates a judge to the Supreme Court, progressives muse loudly about the importance of stare decisis, the principle governing the law of precedents. All they are worried about is the overturning of Roe v. Wade. In fact, stare decisis does not demand blind adherence to poorly reasoned rulings in the mold of Roe.

Neil Gorsuch, Natural Law, and the Limits of Judicial Power

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What does natural law say about the power of judges in constitutional systems of government?

Advice for Judge Gorsuch If Asked About Abortion

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The pro-choice worldview is a tangled mess of inconsistent ideas.

Natural Law, Social Justice, and the Crisis of Liberty in the West

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A reflection on our nature as “dependent, rational animals.”

A True Mensch: The Enduring Legacy of My Friend, Michael Novak

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In the field of religion and the American founding as well as many others, Michael Novak will be remembered as one of the most prolific and influential intellectuals of our time. But above all, Michael was a truly wonderful and compassionate human being.

Remembering Jane Roe and Mary Doe: The Courage of Norma McCorvey and Sandra Cano

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The shameful and irrational desire on the part of the Courts to reach decisions in Roe and Doe with no evidence—and without even knowing if the women in whose names the cases were brought actually wanted abortions—was later exposed by the courage of these two women.

The Catholic Church in De Facto Schism: What’s to Be Done?

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Knowing that the episcopate is divided on de fide doctrines of morality, Pope Francis needs to lead his brother bishops to face frankly this crisis in the Church and to resolve firmly to overcome it. Meanwhile, lay Catholics should not allow distress over the present situation to shake their faith in Jesus’s promise to preserve the Church from damnable error.

Are Refugees Dangerous?

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President Trump’s executive order on immigration is deeply troubling, because it inflicts suffering on “the least of these” for political gain. This demeans the office of the President and robs the United States of its moral high ground in the War on Terror.

Michael Novak: Catholic, American Patriot, and Lover of Liberty

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The life and work of Michael Novak was a witness to Christian faith and the promise of America.

Reclaiming Hope—and Intellectual Honesty: A Christian’s Insider View of the Obama Administration

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Reclaiming Hope is an excellent book that deserves a wide reading, especially by rising activists and statesmen seeking to find ways to make their faith relevant in an increasingly post-Christian world.

How to Think About Discrimination: Race, Sex, and SOGI

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Sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) antidiscrimination laws are unjustified, but if other policies are adopted to address the mistreatment of people who identify as LGBT, they must leave people free to engage in legitimate actions based on the conviction that we are created male and female and that male and female are created for each other.

Trumpism, Terrorism, and Thomism

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On Thomistic principles, Trump’s ban on Syrian refugees whose lives are in danger is not morally justifiable. Bans on other travelers and immigrants, however, are not as problematic.

Swastikas and Safety Pins: The Grim Heritage of Identity Politics

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A war of every group against every other is the sine qua non of identity politics. The peacefulness of classical liberalism is rejected root and branch, for war is the goal.

Neither Reformation nor Enlightenment: The Seeds of Religious Freedom Within Islam

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Contrary to what one often hears in Western media, Islam needs neither a Reformation nor an Enlightenment. Islam must—and can—find resources from within its tradition to defend the full human right to religious freedom. The second in a two-part series.

Religious Freedom in the Muslim World: A Nuanced Appraisal

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What is the status of religious freedom in Islam, and what are its prospects? An answer to this question must begin with a nuanced appraisal of the political theologies that govern different Muslim nations. The first in a two-part series.

Madisonian Thomism

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Though it is often criticized as being based on Hobbesian principles, James Madison’s constitutional theory is basically Thomistic.

Patient Patriotism

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Patriotism isn’t merely something you show in a parade; it means having to deal with people with whom you disagree, but whose lives are bound to yours as yours is to theirs, in a long, difficult, patient, and sometimes painful search for the common good.

Tocqueville and Democracy’s Fall in America

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For Alexis de Tocqueville, American democracy’s passion for equality was a potentially fatal flaw—one that religion could help address. But what happens when religion also becomes preoccupied with equality?

Families, Schools, and Churches: The Building Blocks of a Healthy Social Ecology

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To create a society in which human beings can flourish, we must support child-raising families, schools that intentionally cultivate the intellectual and moral virtues, and local church communities. The second of a two-part series.

Safeguarding the Conditions for an Authentic Human Ecology

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If we are to safeguard the moral conditions for an authentic human ecology we must take far more seriously the care, nurture, and cultivation of children and young people in virtue. The first in a two-part series.

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