In “Limits of Religious Freedom” (March), Matthew Schmitz says that we must recognize limits to religious freedom and boundaries to what qualifies as religion. He is right on both counts. But the limits and boundaries he proposes, if taken at all literally, would bring an end to any meaningful . . . . Continue Reading »
Unlike most other supporters of same-sex marriage, Douglas Laycock has spoken out in defense of Americans compelled to bake cakes or arrange flowers for same-sex weddings. This is cause to admire him, and to doubt his arguments. For he presents his own view of religious freedom as uncomplicated . . . . Continue Reading »
In the face of determined assaults on religion, conservative activists and intellectuals have offered increasingly strident defenses of religious freedom. This “first freedom” is presented as an inviolable principle, an absolute “right to be wrong.” Such rhetoric oversells religious freedom . . . . Continue Reading »
Mao’s successors concede that trying to kill religion is not realistic, but that religion poses a mortal threat to communist rule and must be controlled. Continue Reading »
Among secularists, Christianity is associated with intolerance, largely because its attitudes toward sex do not square with the progressive status quo. But Christianity’s reputation for intolerance can be traced back to the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, and to public intellectuals such . . . . Continue Reading »
Sigitas Tamkevicius’s enrollment in the College of Cardinals was a papal tribute to a brave man who exemplifies the best the Society of Jesus offers the Church and the world. Continue Reading »