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Our Neurotic Fear of Suffering

Never in human history has suffering been more readily relieved than today. And yet, paradoxically, we have never been more afraid of suffering. Our forebears would find this very odd. For them, horrendous suffering was ubiquitous, the bane of rich and poor alike. For example, before anesthesia, the agony of surgery may have killed more patients than surgical procedures helped… . Continue Reading »

A New Front in the Catholic Campus Culture Wars

Last month’s Vatican decree that the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru has lost the right to call itself pontifical or Catholic has resonance for Catholic colleges and universities in the United States. While Vatican representatives say they have spent years trying to persuade the University of Peru to comply with Church guidelines for Catholic universities, most American Catholic colleges and universities have devoted several decades to ignoring them… . Continue Reading »

The Bulverism of Same-Sex Marriage Supporters

C.S. Lewis was often passionate but seldom sardonic. A man deeply steeped in the premodern classical and Christian traditions, however, the way moderns think”or fail to think”could raise his ire. And so he wrote a little essay titled “‘Bulverism’: Or, the Foundation of 20th Century Thought,” in which he invents a hapless character, Ezekiel Bulver … Continue Reading »

The Church and the Unions

The defense of nascent trade unionism in late-nineteenth-century America is a bright chapter in the history of the Catholic Church in the United States. When a nervous Vatican was prepared to write off trade unions as the kind of “secret societies” the Church had long opposed, Cardinal James Gibbons of Baltimore defended the Knights of Labor in Rome and forestalled a Vatican condemnation of American unions”an accomplishment that helped the Church retain the loyalty of working class people… . Continue Reading »

Evangelization is Meant to Persuade, not Provoke

There is a video going around the internet”it seems to arrive in my email box every other day from another Catholic offering it as evidence of Americans’ antipathy toward the church. In the video, which was taken in early August, some gay-rights activists protesting outside a Chicago Chick-fil-A are joined in their circular march by Father Gerald O’Reilly, who proceeds to pray the rosary out loud, contra their shouting, until the activists begin to crowd around him, shouting, “We don’t want your bigoted prayers!” “Get him out of here!” and the always tiresome “Shame! Shame! Shame!” … Continue Reading »

Riot in the Cathedral

What in God’s name are you doing? With deference, this question is directed to the President of The Russian Federation, and more pointedly, to his ecclesial counterpart, the Patriarch of Moscow. Vladimir Putin apparently has his appeal amongst the fairer sex, Patriarch Kirill, presumably less so… . Continue Reading »

The Virgin Mary's Spiritual Lessons

I love the Feast of the Assumption. The readings for the day include a dragon ready to devour the son of the sun-clothed Queen of Heaven. And then there is the magnificat, the Virgin Mary’s hymn of thanksgiving and praise: “My soul doth magnify the Lord; and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my savior.” … Continue Reading »

Why Conservatism Needs the Religious Right

In his book The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse, legal theorist Steven D. Smith coined the term “secular cage” to describe the Enlightenment ideal of a value-neutral public square where religious and philosophical beliefs are off limits. The construction of the cage originally had an elegant rationale: if everyone were to lay aside their subjective opinions and commit only to objective, verifiable facts, then the age of ideological religious wars could be left behind and universal consensus about the common good could be achieved at last… . Continue Reading »

A Man of God

Once upon a time, preachers could grab attention because everyone believed they had something to say that everyone needed to hear. With sin and Satan abroad in the land, Puritan preachers and their congregants were convinced that only their specialized knowledge of the Bible and theology, or of the supernatural world, or of the twists and turns of the sinful heart could lead from death to life. Not many years ago, preachers spoke with authority as the best-educated men in the parish… . Continue Reading »

The Freedom to Homeschool

“It’s a free country.” You used to hear that a lot. Mind if I have the last piece of pie? “It’s a free country.” Mind if I smoke? “It’s a free country.” Too bad it has receded from everyday lingo, replaced by the ubiquitous, meaningless, “Whatever.” Something has been lost. “It’s a free country” was more than just whatever, it was, “Yeah, I mind. But I ain’t gonna stop you.” Isn’t that where the rubber hits the road in a truly free society? … Continue Reading »

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