Matthew Schmitz

Ross Douthat responds to David Bentley Hart’s essay on Jung: I agree with parts of this diagnosis, but I think it’s slightly incomplete, because I think that much of modern Gnosticism is less disenchanted and post-metaphysical than Hart implies. Having spent a fair amount of time reading . . . . Continue Reading »

Statement by Greg Pfundstein of the Chiaroscuro Foundation: In today’s State of the State address, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo pledged to pass the Reproductive Health Act, a controversial piece of legislation designed to further liberalize abortion law in New York State. New York’s . . . . Continue Reading »

Not so long ago, the language of mainline Protestantism supplied our country with its ethical vocabulary. Lutheran minister Reinhold Neibuhr guided his contemporaries’ reflection on war; Episcopal priest Joseph Fletcher promoted the widely adopted idea of “situation ethics.” The . . . . Continue Reading »

On the subject of dressing, I think the final word belongs to St. Louis. The saint-king is quoted in Chesterton’s Saint Thomas Aquinas as saying to his courtiers: “Vanity should be avoided; but every man should dress well, in the manner of his rank, that his wife may the more easily . . . . Continue Reading »

Filmed Tuesday, January 8 at the Heritage Foundation: . . . . Continue Reading »

Elad Nehorai, a young Jewish writer, describes how he lost his faith in gay rights : It was the summer of 2008 in Chicago. The month before I went to yeshiva for the first time. I was excited. My friends and I had talked about doing this for a while now. We were going to the gay pride parade. . . . . Continue Reading »

This week’s issue of Time says that Roe v. Wade hobbled the pro-abortion movement. It’s a point that will be familiar to readers of our January issue, in which Jon Shields makes a similar argument: Roe v. Wade  did far more than create a constitutional right to abortion—it . . . . Continue Reading »

Since meeting Edward and Robert Skidelsky in Florence at a conference sponsored by the Witherspoon Institute, I’ve been a fan of their work, particularly their defense of leisure against those who seek to redescribe Adam’s curse, the labor of man, as a blessing. That said, the . . . . Continue Reading »

One of the popular indicators of the supposed war on Christmas is the use of the abbreviation  Xmas . The well motivated, if grating, “Don’t take Christ out of Christmas” alludes not so subtly to the abbreviation. The former Anglican bishop of Blackburn, Alan Chesters, . . . . Continue Reading »

David mentions the awkwardness, one might say inappropriateness, of the singing of hymns at Mass. The best case for the practice I’ve read is the one offered last summer by Nathaniel Peters in these pages: ” The Catholic Case for Protestant Hymns .” Nathaniel makes several . . . . Continue Reading »