In his speech to the Democratic National Convention, nominating President Obama for a second term, former president Bill Clinton said that the choice before America was a stark one: “What kind of country do you want to live in?” That’s exactly right. Do you want to live in an America with a robust array of legally protected civil society institutions, supported by volunteerism and charitable giving? … Continue Reading »
President Barack Obama, Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards, and countless supporters have claimed again and again that Planned Parenthood provides mammograms. President Obama did so in the second presidential debate, describing the “millions of women all across the country who rely on Planned Parenthood for … mammograms.” … Continue Reading »
James Madison famously defines “faction” in The Federalist No. 10 as “a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.” … Continue Reading »
We are barely two weeks away from an election day that, to paraphrase Churchill, is not the beginning of our end (our end as a nation has been, like the end of each human life, a process built-in at conception, with our last gasp set in motion by our first breath) but may signal the end of the beginning of our end… . Continue Reading »
When Pope Benedict canonized Kateri Tekakwitha yesterday—making her the first Native American saint—he not only elevated an extraordinary Catholic woman; he lifted the entire community of Native American believers. Ever since the “Lily of the Mohawks” died in the seventeenth century, her indigenous supporters have believed what the Catholic Church now officially proclaims: that she was a bold and prophetic saint. . . . Continue Reading »
It would have required a lot of prescience to predict in 1965 that American politics, for so many decades based on economic divisions, would soon split over social issues and, especially, abortion. But not even a very prescient observer could have correctly predicted which party would take which side in the coming battles. On abortion, in particular, it looked obvious which way it would break … Continue Reading »
First there were “animal rights.” Now, the next logical step is being taken by increasingly mainstream environmental radicals. Watch out: Here come “nature rights.” Doubt anyone would pass laws actually giving “rights” to “nature?” They are already being enacted: New Zealand has granted the Whanganui River the rights of “personhood,” declaring it to be an “integrated, living whole” possessing “rights and interests” … Continue Reading »
This Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI will canonize seven new saints. His honorees include four women, two of whom—Franciscan sister Marianne Cope and lay contemplative Kateri Tekakwitha—have American roots. Their canonizations follow just two weeks after Benedict named German mystic Hildegard of Bingen a Doctor of the Church, a high honor bestowed on only three women before her. . . . Continue Reading »
“What about Vatican II?” I asked my Catholic friend, in response to his assertion that Catholic doctrine is stable while the Church’s understanding thereof develops. We were in college together, young bucks full of vim and vigor, passionate about our common Christian faith, even while we stood on opposite confessional sides of the Reformation divide… . Continue Reading »
To untutored common sense, the natural world is filled with irreducibly different kinds of objects and qualities: people; dogs and cats; trees and flowers; rocks, dirt, and water; colors, odors, sounds; heat and cold; meanings and purposes. A man is a radically different sort of thing from a rose, which is in turn no less different from a stone… . Continue Reading »
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