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The Meaning of Marriage

The debates about marriage make clear part of our problem as a society: We’ve lost track of the meaning of marriage. There’s lots to be done to clear up this confusion. One way is to think clearly about what marriage means, both in its natural form and in accord with its supernatural symbolism… . Continue Reading »

Pope Francis and the Clash of Revelations

In his Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy, Etienne Gilson considers how medieval Catholic philosophers would have regarded “an exercise of reason that would be purely philosophical and systematically withdrawn from the influence of faith.” According to Gilson, they would have said that it was technically possible, but pointless. Why? … Continue Reading »

Pope Francis and the Christians of the Middle East

At the start of his installation Mass this week, Pope Francis prayed at the tomb of Peter, near the place in the Vatican where the first bishop of Rome was martyred. The small group Francis asked to join him in the crypt under the main altar of St. Peter’s Basilica included Iraq’s Patriarch Louis Sako and other heads of the Eastern Catholic Churches… . Continue Reading »

Portman D’oh

Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) made national headlines last week when he flipped from opposing to supporting same-sex marriage. I found the whole thing disheartening”and not because of Portman’s new position; people of good will and heart come down on both sides of that controversy. No, it was the how and why of Portman’s switch that bummed me out… . Continue Reading »

Thinking Clearly About Drones

Writing in the Wall Street Journal last week, Robert H. Latiff, a retired Major General in the United States Army now teaching at Notre Dame University, and Patrick J. McCloskey, who teaches at Loyola University in Chicago, take up the troubling question of military drones that, in the near future, will be able to deploy lethal force without direct human control… . Continue Reading »

A Populist Republican Economic Agenda

There is much in the Republican National Committee’s “autopsy” that has merit. It is about time that the Republicans prioritized winning a larger share of non-white voters. One good thing about the 2012 election is that it killed off the illusion that Republicans can keep winning by just reassembling the 1980s Reagan demographic coalition. Unfortunately, the RNC report introduces another illusion to Republican politics… . Continue Reading »

Meeting Pope Francis

ROME”When Pope Francis stepped out onto the central loggia of St. Peter’s on the night of March 13, I thought of the man I had met in his Buenos Aires office ten months before: Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, S.J., who was looking forward to laying down the burden of leadership and devoting himself to prayer, reflection and study. … Continue Reading »

From the April First Things: “Eudaimonia in America”

America is under attack in the pages of First Things. In a recent article Notre Dame professor Patrick Deneen tells us that America is founded on a philosophy of “unsustainable liberalism.” Implicit in the ideas of the American founding, he argues, are certain mistaken philosophical premises about individual choice and man’s separation from nature. Moreover, these mistakes are not merely intellectual because, as their logical consequences play out over time, the inexorable results are severe and pervasive social pathologies … Continue Reading »

From the April First Things: “Wendell Berry’s Marriage Reversal”

Wendell Berry’s recent self-described “general declaration” in support of “homosexual marriage” shocked many, fans and critics alike. Berry, who once wrote that marriage “cannot be altered to suit convenience or circumstance” and has long argued that marriage is an inherited form premised on the embodiment of men and women, now treats sexual difference in marriage as optional. … Continue Reading »

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