Random stuff I find interesting and you may not.
America’s birth rate has fallen again, extending a decadeslong decline that has reshaped the country’s demographic future. The latest data confirm what has been evident for years: People are having fewer children and, if they have them at all, later. Analysts have pointed to a familiar list of explanations — the rising cost of housing, … Read more
In an interview given to the program Le Club Le Figaro Idées , Cardinal Robert Sarah has offered an uncompromising diagnosis of the situation of the Church and the West. The African cardinal warns of a deep crisis of faith in Europe, denounces the reduction of the Church to a social organization, and emphasizes that … Read more
My father arrived in America from Germany in 1939, 75 years ago. It was March 17, St. Patrick’s Day—a holiday my father had never heard of—and New York City’s marching bands and colorful parade amazed him. If this was how America welcomed immigrants, it was truly fantastic. St. Patrick’s Day would become my family’s special … Read more
So what happens when you live in a country where people take potshots at you every other day or so? Well, unless something like October 7th happens, or Islamists blow themselves up, you get pretty used to dealing with the peril and get on with your life. Hamas and Hezbollah have been lobbing rockets at … Read more
The internet, that great distorter of information, tells me that Cardinal Robert Sarah is “a member of the right wing of the Catholic Church.” An outsider might look at this and wonder if the Catholic Church is a hockey team with right and left wings. If it were, Cardinal Sarah would be the center, harboring … Read more
Every Mother’s Day, several enterprising young thought-leaders try to include plant moms and dog moms in the celebration. Thankfully, they’re roundly ridiculed for comparing their pets to human children, or their caretaking experience to the challenges of motherhood. The selfishness of many (although certainly not all) deliberately childless women flares up at the sight of … Read more
This year marks the ten-year anniversary of the martyrdom of Jacques Hamel, the 85-year-old French priest who was brutally murdered on July 26, 2016, by two Muslim men inspired by the terrorist group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, otherwise known as ISIS or ISIL. During the Prayers of Petition, the two men, … Read more
A new long‑term study from the United States has revealed that a significant number of women continue to experience deep regret years after having an abortion, prompting fresh reflection on how society supports women who face crisis pregnancies. Researchers tracked thousands of women over a period of years and found that around one in four … Read more
At the dawn of the 1950s, as atheistic communism was seeping into the West from the Soviet Union and as godless secularism and hedonism were on the rise in America, achieving the disastrous watershed known as the Sexual Revolution some years later, a Catholic bishop stood before a camera, a chalkboard over his shoulder, ready … Read more
Many news organizations carried the story of the release of Bar Kuperstein two years after he had been kidnapped by Hamas on October 7. Kuperstein was a young security guard at the Nova Festival, the music festival targeted by Hamas for its fat genocidal possibilities, with sides of rape, torture, and kidnapping. After taking some … Read more
Every so often, a cultural moment exposes something far deeper than a policy disagreement. That happened again recently when comments from Stranger Things actress Maya Hawke resurfaced online — remarks she made several years ago but which gained renewed attention amid the show’s continued popularity. Appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in 2022, … Read more
The Miraculous Medal Related PostsWhat the Miraculous Medal Has Done for Me The Miraculous Medal: St Maximilian Kolbe’s weapon for evangelization
Merry Christmas!
There’s a very short and very brutal poem by the Scottish poet Hollie McNish, written in 2019 and titled “Conversation with an archaeologist”: he said they’d found a brothel on the dig he did last night I asked him how they know he sighed: a pit of babies’ bones a pit of newborn babies’ bones … Read more
It wasn’t 1985 anymore, and he wasn’t in Bedford Falls. It was 2016: Barack Obama sat in the White House as the most pro-abortion president in history, and same-sex marriage had become legal in every state. In just three years as pontiff, Pope Francis had unsettled the hearts of millions of faithful Catholics with a … Read more
Undoubtedly, it often happens that you try to correct certain depraved and dishonest people who are under your care, but every effort and concern is in vain. They are incorrigible, so they have to be put up with. Such incorrigibles are already in the Church. How then will you separate yourself from them so that … Read more
COMMENTARY: Reconciliation must never sacrifice the timeless truths of the Church, but sadly that appears to be the case in China. Cardinal Stephen Chow, the bishop of Hong Kong, defended the state of religious freedom in Hong Kong in a public dialogue in Parramatta, Australia, on Sept. 15. If what he said were true — … Read more
Some two weeks before the 2nd anniversary of October 7, the UN, the UK, France, Australia, Canada and other failed radical governments rallied to commemorate the massacres, kidnappings and rapes by giving the Islamic terrorists responsible for it their own ‘state’. Along with a High Holidays gift to the Jews celebrating their new year. The … Read more
When he was a boy walking the streets in Hannibal, Missouri, pages from a biography of Joan of Arc (1412-1431) were swept up to Samuel Clemens’ feet. Upon reading the strewn pages, Clemens inquired of his mother whether Joan of Arc was a real person or a myth. As biographer Ron Chernow writes, “The chance … Read more
There is a phrase I have always disliked, which is often found in obituaries or profiles of prominent people: “he didn’t/doesn’t suffer fools gladly”. Sometimes, I am sure, it is used to convey the idea that an individual is or was impatient with humbug, excuses or persistent incompetence, which can be a useful and admirable … Read more
British satirist and cultural commentator Konstantin Kisin — author of An Immigrant’s Love Letter to the West (2022) — recently shared a debate clip from Doha, Qatar, in which he made a simple observation: Slavery has existed in every human society and across the whole of human history. It’s a statement so uncontroversial it should … Read more
God is doing something incredible with Gen Z, and secular media is noticing. The same outlets that once confidently proclaimed, “Religion is dying! Young people are leaving churches in droves! Christians to be a minority by 2050!” now seem to be changing their tune. Lately, the headlines from mainstream media read more like, “Catholicism sees … Read more
Nothing less than virtue must be the guiding principle of our love for tradition, and this must be especially true for men. I did not discover the Latin Mass until seven years ago, so my Catholic upbringing as an adult convert for the past twenty-plus years was in the New Mass. The hymns were embarrassing … Read more
G.K. Chesterton also came to Christianity and eventually the Church through being grateful for the world. He felt gratitude long before he became a Christian. The idea of “taking things with gratitude, and not taking things for granted” was, he wrote about a year before he died, “the chief idea of my life.” If he … Read more
Pope Pius IX recognized the moral and spiritual deception at the heart of communism. On November 9, 1846, Pope Pius IX issued an encyclical titled Qui Pluribus, a Latin phrase that translates as “to the many.” Pius was writing during a period of great political and social upheaval. Across the continent, food shortages, unemployment, and … Read more