Category: Current Issues

Anthony Esolen Anthony Esolen, Ph.D., is a faculty member and writer in residence at Magdalen College of the Liberal Arts in Warner, New Hampshire. COMMENTARY: Should Americans Memorialize this Moment, the Statue Erected Wouldn’t Be a Man of the State, or of Letters or of the Cloth, But Ambiguous at Best. Begin in revolution; end in farce. I have a vision of a new monument, befitting what my beloved country has become. It will not be a statue of a statesman. Tucked into a green triangle between Massachusetts Avenue, L Street and 11th Street, in Washington, D.C., there stands a fine …

Lauretta Brown Lauretta Brown is the Register’s Washington-based staff writer. The Senate’s arcane rules regarding the reconciliation process provided the mechanism whereby the narrow Democratic majority was able to circumvent a potential GOP filibuster. The House is poised to vote Wednesday on the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan of 2021 which will fund stimulus checks, vaccine distribution, and — to the dismay of the pro-life movement — potentially abortion.  The bill did not contain the longstanding, 44-year-old Hyde Amendment restriction on taxpayer-funded abortion. As Democrats increasingly take aim at such abortion restrictions in spending bills, the passage of the relief package …

Celeste McGovern writes from Nova Scotia, Canada. MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Doctors who perform genital-mutilating surgeries or prescribe off-label puberty-blocking drugs or cross-sex hormones to minors for “transgender therapy” in the state of Alabama may face up to 10 years in prison or a $15,000 fine, according to a bill that passed the state Senate last week. Bill SB10, the Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act, sponsored by state Sen. Shay Shelnutt, R-Trussville, sailed through the Senate by a 23-4 vote. It will now move to the Alabama House of Representatives, where a committee has already approved almost identical legislation. It’s a …

GEORGE WEIGEL is a Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies. His 27th book, THE NEXT POPE: The Office of Peter and a Church in Mission, has just been published by Ignatius Press. A mile or so from my home in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., the county is completing work on a handsome new middle school, currently surrounded by plastic fences. Landscaping is underway, and I sympathize with the landscapers’ desire to keep the public from trampling over newly laid sod. Moreover, there are still construction crews …

By Anthony Esolen Anthony Esolen, a contributing editor at Crisis, is a professor and writer-in-residence at Magdalen College of the Liberal Arts. He is the author, most recently, of Sex and the Unreal City (Ignatius Press, 2020). One of the ironic things about my diploma from Princeton is that it is written in a language that almost none of the graduates understand: Latin. It confers upon me the degree of Artium baccalaureus, literally, crowned with bay leaves for knowledge of the arts. Since most college graduates write badly, if they write at all, and know very little about the literature of their own language, let alone the fine arts, …

By Eric Sammons Eric Sammons is the editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine. He is the author, most recently, of The Old Evangelization: How to Spread the Faith Like Jesus Did (Catholic Answers, 2017). Bishop Robert Barron first came to fame in the Catholic world for his fight against what he called “beige Catholicism.” The founder of Word on Fire rightly saw that a milquetoast, flaccid expression of Catholicism—so common in parishes across the country and embraced by the liberal elements of the Church—is a death knell for the Church. Barron wrote eloquent articles and produced polished videos reminding Catholics that the Faith is more than the insipid liturgies …

By Eric Sammons Eric Sammons is the editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine. He is the author, most recently, of The Old Evangelization: How to Spread the Faith Like Jesus Did (Catholic Answers, 2017). Although it was 16 years ago, I remember it vividly. I was driving down I-270 in Maryland toward Washington, DC, listening to Rush Limbaugh on the radio. This was unusual for me, because my work didn’t allow me to be driving very often during his noon–3 PM time slot. At this time the Terri Shiavo tragedy was playing out, with what seemed like the whole country following the sad story of this …

By Fr. Simon Henry Fr. Simon Henry is Parish Priest at the Church of St. Catherine Labouré in the Archdiocese of Liverpool. Ordained in 1991, he blogs on mostly liturgical issues at offerimus tibi domine. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Theology from Durham University and a master’s degree in Pastoral Liturgy from Heythrop College, University of London. He is the Director of the Petrus Trust, a not-for-profit company that runs Saint Peter’s. “If young people are educated properly, we have moral order; if not, vice and disorder prevail. Religion alone can initiate and achieve a true education.”  St. John Bosco’s understanding …

By Patrick J. Reilly Patrick J. Reilly is president of The Cardinal Newman Society, which promotes and defends faithful Catholic education. In just the first months of the Biden administration, Catholic educators have been confronted by serious threats to their freedom to teach and witness to the Catholic faith. We knew the storm was coming. Over the last four years, schools and colleges enjoyed a brief respite before the anticipated return of Obama-era policies like the mandate for contraception coverage in healthcare plans and attempts to open bathrooms and locker rooms to students of the opposite sex. The new threats loom even larger. Catholics face …