George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies. He is the author of over twenty books, including Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II (1999), The End and the Beginning: Pope John Paul II—The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy (2010), and The Irony of Modern Catholic History: How the Church Rediscovered Itself and Challenged the Modern World to Reform. His most recent books are The Next Pope: The Office of Peter and a Church in Mission (2020), and Not Forgotten: Elegies for, and Reminiscences of, a Diverse …
Category: Current Issues
Liberal authoritarianism and the traditional Latin Mass
George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies. He is the author of over twenty books, including Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II (1999), The End and the Beginning: Pope John Paul II—The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy (2010), and The Irony of Modern Catholic History: How the Church Rediscovered Itself and Challenged the Modern World to Reform. His most recent books are The Next Pope: The Office of Peter and a Church in Mission (2020), and Not Forgotten: Elegies for, and Reminiscences of, a Diverse …
The Disappointing “Conservative” Supreme Court
By Fr. Mario Alexis Portella Fr. Mario Alexis Portella is a priest of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore and Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Florence, Italy. He was born in New York and holds a doctorate in canon law and civil law from the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. He is the author of Islam: Religion of Peace?—The Violation of Natural Rights and Western Cover-Up (Westbow Press, 2018). The U.S. Supreme Court, on the last day of the 2020-2021 session, in a 7-3 vote—the dissenters were Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas—declined to hear the case in which floral artist …
Are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness Still Self-Evident Rights?
John Clark is an online-homeschool course developer for Seton Home Study School, a speechwriter, and the author of two books, Who’s Got You? and How to Be a Superman Dad in a Kryptonite World, Even When You Can’t Afford A Decent Cape. He has written hundreds of articles and blogs about Catholic family life and apologetics in such places as Magis Center, Seton Magazine, and Catholic Digest. John and his wife Lisa have nine children and live in Florida. Whether it is self-evident or not, it is the philosophical belief in the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that helped …
John Paul II Was Right: There Is No Freedom Without Truth
Monika Jablonska is a consultant with expertise in international business transactions and NGOs, lawyer, and philanthropist. Currently, Ms. Jablonska is working on her Ph.D. thesis in political science. She is the author of Wind from Heaven: John Paul II, The Poet Who Became Pope. Her second book about St. John Paul II will be released in 2021. She also writes for various magazines and newspapers in the United States and Europe. “There can be no rule of law … unless citizens and especially leaders are convinced that there is no freedom without truth.” —Pope St. John Paul II Man is called …
The Family is the Front Line in the Battle for Truth
Erika J. Ahern is a senior classical educator, consultant, and writer. She blogs, vlogs, and consults at Verity Ed, where she equips parents with the tools, information, and confidence to claim their role as their children’s primary educators. You can pick up a copy of her latest eBook, Outside the Box, at her website. Erika lives in Connecticut with her husband, Todd, and their six children. Parenting means teaching your children how to distinguish between absolute truth and subjective opinion. The primary purpose of parenting is to educate our children in the truth, to give them a formation in virtue that will free …
Fact Versus Fiction — the Indoctrination of Relativism
Matt D’Antuono is a physics teacher, a Great Books discussion moderator for the Angelicum Academy, and an associate of the community of the Friars of the Renewal. He lives on a hobby farm in New Jersey with his wife and eight children. He holds bachelor’s degrees in physics and philosophy, a master’s degree in special education, and a master’s degree in philosophy from Holy Apostles in Cromwell, Connecticut. He returned to the Catholic Church in 2008. He is the author of A Fool’s Errand: A Brief, Informal Introduction to Philosophy for Young Catholics, The Wiseguy and the Fool and Philosophy Fridays. On YouTube, you …
The Failure of Catholic Academia
By Stephen Sammut, PhD Stephen Sammut, BPharm, PhD, is a Professor of Psychology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. Dr. Sammut received a BPharm from Monash University in Victoria, Australia, and a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Malta. For more than 20 years Dr. Sammut has conducted varied research in animal models to investigate questions related to psychopathology, including depression, schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease, and drug abuse. In the preface to the first edition of the book The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions, after addressing the fact that he’s a secular Jew whose “religious education did not take,” who …
Is Tradition Rigid?
By Eric Sammons Eric Sammons is the editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine. His most recent book Deadly Indifference (May 2021) examines the rise of religious indifference and how it has led the Church to lose her missionary zeal. Although Pope Francis has a global reputation as a humble, gentle pastor, those who follow him closely know he’s not averse to handing out strong criticisms when he sees fit, including throwing out insults at times to fellow Catholics. And no insult is more central to his repertoire than the term “rigid.” For Pope Francis, to be rigid is to be the worst kind of Catholic. What does it mean to …
When Communion on the Tongue Is Forbidden
By Christina Debusschere Christina Debusschere is a wife and mother from Alberta, Canada. After being homeschooled K-12, she received her Bachelor of Arts in Music and Bachelor of Education from the Concordia University of Edmonton. She blogs with her husband at www.theromanticcatholic.wordpress.com. “After the consecration of the bread and wine, Our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and man, is really, truly, and substantially contained in the Blessed Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist under the outward appearances of sensible things.”—Council of Trent, Decree on the Most Holy Eucharist, Chapter 1 The rise in Catholic disbelief in the Real Presence cannot be attributed to …