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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.

Public Reason and the Cultural Moment

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college students

A Third Voice: Protecting a Regime of Robust Speech on the Campus without Falling into Relativism

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We must be clear that nothing in the search for the truth entails that we recede in any way from the surety that we have with us, now as ever, the standards for judging evil ends to be truly evil.   
ethics advice column

Ask Chris Tollefsen: An Ethics Advice Column

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The parallel to vital conflict cases is clear: do not too quickly assume that death is inevitable. Do not too quickly assume that active rather than passive harm needs to be inflicted, even as a side effect.
The Bookshelf

The Bookshelf: Children of Abraham 

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The plight of the Palestinians is indeed a tragic one. Peace with their stronger neighbor will not come easily to them. Only a cessation of terrorism, of attacks on civilians, and of demonization of the Jewish people will enable them to make any substantial progress. Sad to say, the first steps may have to be taken by the Western elites who have learned to make anti-Semitism fashionable again, and have a great deal of unlearning to do. 
Agrarian life

Rooted in the Nation: Whittaker Chambers’s Agrarian Conservatism

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Conservative political action can, in fact, be a bulwark of counterrevolution. This is why Whittaker Chambers was a “conservative of the heart,” even if he did not consider himself a “conservative of the head.” In the final analysis, he was a witness to the permanent things.
oath

Disintegrating Conscience in a Fragmented Age 

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Although one might find oneself disagreeing with Smith, as I have on occasion, one will be better for it. And I can say that with a clear conscience.  
Israel-Hamas War

The West Has Forgotten Why Collateral Damage Is Morally Justified

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Ultimately, the defeat of these terrorist groups is the primary ethical imperative. This will benefit not only Israel but also the Gazan civilians who suffer longer under their terrorist leaders and the continuous warfare that they breed. There is a moral cost to not acting decisively, and a strategic cost to forgetting the moral justification for killing in war.
Religious freedom

Religious Freedom Deserves a Right of Its Own

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Religion is a basic good for all human beings everywhere, therefore religious freedom is a universal human right. It is neither unfair nor parochial, but a requirement of justice.
Poland
  • War

Poland, the War in Ukraine, and the Problem of Moral Rearmament

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A major problem is that in these dangerous times, without strength there will be no lasting peace.
free speech at universities

In Defense of Free Speech and the Mission of the University 

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If we were to adopt Yoram’s call for censorship in areas where I am calling for freedom of speech, I invite him—and you, gentle reader—to consider the following question: Would the result be anything other than the further entrenchment of current campus orthodoxies, and the further weakening of protection for dissent and dissenters?
IVF

Location, Location, Location

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Location is simply one more of those many factors that make no difference where the most foundational moral principles are concerned. The human embryo is a human being, whether in utero, undergoing cell division in vitro, or temporarily (or permanently) in frozen stasis in a “nursery,” as the Alabama Supreme Court tellingly, but somewhat ironically, calls it.
Catholic church interior

Can Catholic Integralism Be Good in Theory but Bad in Practice?

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If you want to boil this essay down into one question for the soft integralist, it is this: You say you don’t want integralism now, but if not now, when? Answering that question is harder than you think.
cities

Learning How to Govern by Running Our Cities Better

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If local politicians expect to be reelected, they have to focus on solving problems that are immediately relevant to their communities and the real people who live in them.
Constitution

Getting Authority Right: The Common Good and “Popular Sovereignty”

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Alicea repeats often and correctly the age-old insight that responsibility to care for the common good belongs to each member of the political community. But an equal sharing of authority does not follow from that shared responsibility, and no account of the Constitution’s moral authority will succeed if it presumes otherwise. 
illusion

A Leftism of Illusion

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The stronger the truth the Left seeks to counteract, and the more irrational the fantasy it promotes, the larger and stronger the government it requires. Whether it will achieve its ends remains to be seen.
Israel ruins

Persecution and Israeli Academia

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Many academics, perhaps recognizing the extreme nature of such boycotts, justify them by caricaturing Israeli policies as comparable to Nazism. It is only by such extreme assertions that boycotts can justify themselves.
Aristotle

Why Liberalism Needs Piety

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According to Nichols, Aristotelian human flourishing requires piety,  the acknowledgment that humans are akin to the divine but cannot be divine themselves. The task of the political community is to support the life of piety.
Free speech in universities

Should Universities Protect Campus Anti-Semites?

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Perhaps the time has finally come for anti-Marxist professors to concede that the liberal theory of the university as a “neutral” forum is too far removed from reality to be feasible. Instead, anti-Marxist liberals and conservatives should be defending a theory of the university as an educational institution that has no choice but to uphold at least minimal standards of substantive decency.
Crucifix

The Religion That Remade the World

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Tom Holland raises many important questions about the connection between Christianity and contemporary Western civilization. All Westerners, be they Christian or not, would do well to consider his insights.
Warsaw, Poland

A Nation (Still) Faithful to Its Roots? What St. John Paul the Great Might Say to Poland Today

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The recent election clearly shows that the Poland of today is no longer the Poland of the 1990s or even of the early 2010s. It raises the question whether Poles have sustained the kind of culture necessary to build a market society based on authentic freedom and the truth about the good, one with a robust civil society to support both the logic of the state and the logic of the market.
John Witherspoon

The Witherspoon Way

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There is a case for cursing the darkness. But it is better to light a candle, and better still to light many.
Donald Trump swearing in ceremony

Is Donald Trump Disqualified from the Presidency? A Response to Matthew J. Franck

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People have a right to protest supposed electoral fraud even if they are obviously and verifiably wrong. They do not have the right to commit violence. No one has the right to commit violence in a political cause. But not all political violence is insurrection.
Pregnant woman holding her belly

Disability Requires Protection in the Womb

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If Ms. Cox is unwilling to parent a disabled child, she should terminate her parental rights upon birth, giving others the chance to show charity to a small but greatly treasured life. To hold that child’s hand as he or she drew a final breath would be to sit on hallowed ground.
Donald Trump

Is Donald Trump Disqualified from the Presidency?

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The country is divided. Many people support Donald Trump, and many revile him. Whatever is decided on his eligibility, or his criminal culpability in federal and state prosecutions, large numbers of people are going to be very unhappy.
Pope Pius XII

Misrepresenting the Latest Meeting on Pope Pius XII

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One of the biggest developments to emerge from the conference is that the Vatican under Pope Francis, far from slackening its support of Pius XII, has actually increased it.
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