Category: Current Issues

By Gretchen Erlichman Gretchen Erlichman is currently a Ph.D. student and teaching fellow at The Catholic University of America. She will be entering as a postulant with the contemplative Dominican nuns of the Monastery of Our Lady of Grace in North Guilford, Connecticut in July 2021. We live in “unprecedented times.” This oft-repeated phrase has not only made the headlines of the daily newspaper and graced the lips of many a newscaster but has also become an ever-present mantra of our everyday encounters. “Unprecedented times” describes the bewildering conglomeration of political chaos, religious tensions, and a pandemic-ridden society.  Yet, it is precisely …

By Jonathan B. Coe Jonathan B. Coe writes from the Pacific Northwest. Before being received into the Catholic Church in 2004, he served in pastoral ministry in rural Alaska and in campus ministry at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Several years ago, when I was received into the Catholic Church, I thought I had come into the experience with my eyes fully open. The scandals of 2002 had already happened, and their details and significance were being truthfully unpacked by many Catholic commentators for all the world to see. Because I had spent several years in leadership roles in evangelical-charismatic …

By Austin Ruse Austin Ruse is a contributing editor to Crisis Magazine. His next book, Under Siege: No Finer Time to be a Faithful Catholic, is out from Crisis Publications in April. You can follow him on Twitter @austinruse At least some of the country was riveted by the images of an autistic boy writhing on the floor of an airport after he had been kicked off a flight for not masking. I say “at least some” because a large cohort of Americans couldn’t care less about his discomfort. They are the Maskers. And God help you if you stand in their way or …

By Suzan Sammons Suzan Sammons is a writer, editor, nutrition student, and blundering gardener in southwest Ohio. She is currently in year 17 of what she projects to be a 29-year project called homeschooling. Early March saw a flurry of tweets from blue-checkmark women bemoaning the looming return of life to its pre-pandemic whirlwind: blazers and heels, carpooling and rushed meals, less time at home and much more on the run. Why does the thought of going back to their old lives frighten these professional women who have staked so much to their careers outside the home?  Importantly, it’s not just high-powered …

By Anne Hendershott Anne Hendershott is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, OH. She is the author of The Politics of Envy (Crisis Publications, 2020). While a growing number of media outlets are attempting to indict “white supremacists” for the dramatic increase in reported hate crimes against people of Asian descent, the reality is that for more than four decades Asian Americans in some of our largest cities have been the victims of violence and discrimination perpetrated by members of several racial and ethnic groups. And, although there has indeed been an …

By Clement Harrold Clement Harrold is a British citizen studying at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, majoring in Theology, Philosophy, and Classics, with a minor in German. The events of the past year have posed new and, in certain respects, unprecedented challenges not only for the Church and the body politic, but also for individual man and his relationship to both. In the early days of the pandemic, governments surely had just cause for concern in the face of this highly contagious and largely unknown disease. One year on, however, it seems that a more sober analysis is in order.  Certainly, 2.7 …