A bumpersticker in a parking lot at one of my work places reads: “Fear No Art.”I did not expect to be drawn into a discussion of art. As I acknowledged in my first posting, other than an amateur enjoyment of classical music and opera, my artistic knowledge is woefully undeveloped. . . . . Continue Reading »
“Why should an intelligent person believe in God?” That was the first question posed to Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks at a dinner for religion journalists sponsored last night by the Templeton Foundation, by the Washington Post’s Sally Quinn. Rabbi Sacks, the author of eighteen books . . . . Continue Reading »
The following homily was delivered by Fr. Neuhaus at the annual Memorial Mass of the Military Vicariate at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., on the Feast of the Ascension, 2007. The Scripture texts just read are for this day, the Feast of the Ascension of Our . . . . Continue Reading »
A contest of worldviews in our time pits devout Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and other believers against secularist liberals and those who, while remaining within the religious denominations, have adopted essentially secularist liberal ideas about personal and political morality. The contest . . . . Continue Reading »
The just war tradition came into being during the Middle Ages as a way of thinking about the right use of force in the context of responsible government of the political community. With deep roots in both ancient Israel and classical Greek and Roman political thought and practice, the origins of a . . . . Continue Reading »
Everyone has lied. Most people are uneasy about lying, but most also justify at least some of their lies. How uneasy should we be? Is there such a thing as an innocent lie? What is a lie, anyway? And what is at stake in these questions—what, exactly, is endangered if we get the answers . . . . Continue Reading »
Perhaps the enduring subtext in the evolution of moral education in America, and its continuing story to the present, has been a quest for inclusiveness. While the need to provide moral instruction to young people has never been questioned, neither has the impulse to accommodate the ever-growing . . . . Continue Reading »
Moral philosophers are caught in a peculiar paradox these days. On the one hand, their field is flourishing: No longer intimidated by the logical positivists (who denied truth to moral assertions except as expressions of likes and dislikes), thinkers as diverse as Iris Murdoch, Martha Nussbaum, and . . . . Continue Reading »
Paul J. Hill, convicted of killing an abortionist and his security guard in Pensacola, Florida, has advanced the following rationale for his action: “Whatever force is legitimate in defending a born child is legitimate in defending an unborn child.” For some who believe that the moral status of . . . . Continue Reading »
I Nietzsche claimed that if men took God seriously, they would still be burning heretics at the stake. In the same spirit, one supposes, are the notions that if men really cherished moral truth, they would suppress all beliefs that they considered wrong, and that if men still cared about the . . . . Continue Reading »
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