Back in the days when Chuck Colson was willing to run over his grandmother for Richard Nixon, I would have happily done the same to Mr. Colson. Well, that was then, and this is now. And over the past 20 years, I never met a more thoroughly converted Christian, a more ecumenically serious Christian, or a more tenacious Christian than Chuck Colson, who died on April 21. He was a man whom I came, not just to respect, but to love… . Continue Reading »
In two recent papers, Meghan Grizzle argues that the phrases “reproductive health” and “family planning” are perfectly acceptable and that pro-lifers should fight for them. She argues that abortion is not a part of reproductive health in international law and contraceptives are not a part of family planning… . Continue Reading »
“Reproductive health” and “family planning” are not poisonous terms. As the World Youth Alliance’s white paper on reproductive health demonstrates, international law is clear… . Continue Reading »
The 2012 June/July issue is now available online. What does this beige issue contain? R. R. Reno opens the magazine by reflecting on psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s new book The Righteous Mind and what it tells us about the limitations of contemporary liberalism … Continue Reading »
Speaking as they do to equal access to a sacrament, last Sunday’s verses from Acts 10 might have seemed, to those fixating on the question of same-sex marriage, like something of a rebuke to the Catholic church and her bishops … Continue Reading »
A key question, perhaps the key question, this Court is being called on to address is whether the Constitution of the United States chooses between competing moral understandings of the nature, value, and social purposes of marriage, thus settling the question of how marriage is to be defined. On reflection, I believe your honor will see that it does not. Rather, the Constitution leaves the matter, as it leaves most matters of substantive law where choices between competing moral understandings must be made, for resolution in the forums of democratic deliberation and decision-making, including, in the case of federal law, the Congress of the United States… . Continue Reading »
Our lives are centered and built upon innumerable complex relationships, which subconsciously we are constantly analyzing, changing, and developing. Although these moments of cross-examination frequently remain unacknowledged, they are the driving forces that shape who we are as individuals. They range from interactions with our physical and metaphysical space, to explorations of the interpersonal and the self… . Continue Reading »
Shmuley Boteach, the Orthodox Jewish rabbi and author of bestselling books, is perhaps best known as a friend and adviser to the late “King of Pop,” Michael Jackson. He is also currently a Republican candidate for Congress in Bergen County, New Jersey. This is all to say that he is a man”a religious man, at that”with a voice in the public square… . Continue Reading »
It’s an age of widespread cultural and ecclesial malaise: the State encroaches ever more into the affairs of the church; the clergy is indolent and ineffective, oft corrupt and unchaste; the laity is poorly catechized; and Gnosticism advances. It’s the twelfth century, into which a Teutonic prophetess stepped, prepared to confront the spirits of the age with visions from on high. … Continue Reading »
The dead are not really dead. They hang around to pester us. Not as ghosts, no; I don’t believe in ghosts. Nor do I mean the dead “live on” in our memory and in our hearts, nor even necessarily”as I’ve noted before”that they now have “gone on” to a “better place.” This isn’t the time to go all metaphysical, anyway. No, I mean they all leave residue behind that commands attention and occupies mammoth periods of time and sometimes space, stretching, as far as I can see, endlessly into the future… . Continue Reading »
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