Matthew Schmitz

Jay Michaelson, contributing editor to the  Jewish Daily Forward, is rolling out a report titled ” Redefining Religious Liberty: The Covert Campaign Against Civil Rights.” In it he makes the conspiracy-minded claim that groups like the Becket Fund are part of a “Roman Catholic campaign . . . . Continue Reading »

“The Vatican has an annual operating budget of under $300 million, while Harvard University, arguably the Vatican of elite secular opinion, has a budget of $3.7 billion, meaning it’s ten times greater. The Vatican’s ‘patrimony,’ what other institutions would call an . . . . Continue Reading »

Once a symbol of the evil spirits that St. Patrick drove from Ireland, in recent years snakes have come to represent Ireland’s boom—- and now its bust : BALLIVOR, Ireland — Legend has it that St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland. The economic crisis has brought some of . . . . Continue Reading »

“Known as an incisive thinker and intensely holy man living a devout life, it is held against him that he is a Jesuit, although he has suffered the slings and arrows of Jesuits of a more ‘progressive’ bent.” -Richard John Neuhaus, Catholic Matters , 2007 . . . . Continue Reading »

Catholic leaders like New York’s Cardinal Dolan are wrongly pinning their hopes on vouchers, says education expert Sean Kennedy : My concern with people like Cardinal Dolan and other people in the church, they’ve hung their hat exclusively on vouchers. The political reality is that . . . . Continue Reading »

Ryan T. Anderson describes the impressive number of briefs that have been filed urging the Supreme Court to uphold Prop 8 and DOMA and elsewhere writes, with William Beach, that repealing the death tax is a better way to fix inheritance law than redefining marriage. . . . . Continue Reading »

Luis Palau, an Argentine-born evangelist who has in many ways taken up the mantle of Billy Graham, speaks of his friendship with Pope Francis : One day I said to him, ‘You seem to love the Bible a lot,’ and he said, ‘You know, my financial manager [for the Archdiocese of Buenos . . . . Continue Reading »

George Weigel writes in National Review : Cardinal Bergoglio was used in 2005; he knows precisely who used him and why; and while he is a man of the Gospel who is not looking to settle scores, he is also a man of prudence who knows who his friends, and who his enemies, are. Here’s the story: . . . . Continue Reading »

“To those who are now promising to fix all your problems, I say, ‘Go and fix yourself.’ . . . Have a change of heart. Get to confession, before you need it even more! The current crisis will not be improved by magicians from outside the country and nor will [improvement] come . . . . Continue Reading »

About an hour after the world saw white smoke, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Pope Francis, stepped out to offer the crowd his blessing. But before that, he asked for its prayers. This is a humble man, a prince of the church born into a working-class family who’s noted for riding public . . . . Continue Reading »