Random stuff I find interesting and you may not.
Not only does pornography as a means of adultery prevention fail the religious test. It miserably fails the moral and realistic test as well. As Todd Friel of Wretched explains, Prager’s message is horrible for both men and women — first because it gives men permission to use porn, providing them an “out,” and second … Read more
Legislators in California are considering a bill that would allow state officials to separate children from their families without letting the parents know until after the fact. Government authorities could do this for children who struggle with gender identity problems but whose parents are not being “ affirming ” of their new identification as the … Read more
In my younger years, my mother bought a recording of the musical South Pacific. We kids played it so often that we learned most of the songs by heart. This past week, one of the songs, “Cockeyed Optimist,” as sung by Mitzi Gaynor, kept popping into my head. Here are a few lines: “I have … Read more
This life is too beautiful not to wail, and cry, and withdraw into silence when it ends. O Lord, I heard Thy report, and was afraid: I considered thy works, and was amazed. —Habakkuk 3:2 At my parish, on Good Friday, the priest and deacons wear black vestments. They wear them the same way that … Read more
Roe v. Wade was overturned on June 24, 2022. The pro-life movement had worked toward this goal for nearly half a century; at several points, it had seemed impossible. I was in Washington, D.C., that weekend and walked to the Supreme Court to see the crowds of angry protestors roiling in front of the steel … Read more
Fifty years ago, then-Fr. Joseph Ratzinger and Ida Friederike Görres were watching their era’s equivalent of a livestream of the implosion of the Church in Europe. And they were asking the same questions about the “reformers” in the Church that many of us are asking today: Why are they so optimistic about their efforts that … Read more
Welcome to the Middle Ages. Have you ever stopped and asked yourself: How, in the year 2023, did humans begin to debate propositions like “Can men become women?” How can a society that invents vaccines and sends vehicles to other planets start to doubt the sexual dimorphism of humanity? Or begin to wonder whether our … Read more
In 2007, I wrote a piece called “Taiwan’s Two Dozen: Who will dare have relations with Free China?” The piece is not available on the Internet, or at least I have not been able to call it up. Perhaps craftier Googlers than I can do so. Anyway, at the time, those 16 years ago, Taiwan … Read more
This week, the University of Pittsburgh was under fire from State Rep. La’Tasha D. Mayes, who objected to conservative speakers, including competitive swimmer Riley Gaines, Daily Wire commentator Michael Knowles, and Daily Wire podcast host Cabot Phillips. Mayes’ objections reflect the growing anti-free speech movement, and its rationale of “speech-as-harm” that is sweeping the nation. … Read more
It’s the perfect headline for the major media’s preferred narrative, which means two things: Nearly every outlet will pick it up, and it’s mostly bogus. “So many doctors are being driven away by Idaho abortion ban that this hospital can’t deliver babies anymore,” one headline about Bonner General in Bonner County, Idaho, declared. “Idaho hospital … Read more
World Down Syndrome Day on March 21 celebrates people who have an extra partial or whole copy of Chromosome 21. People with Down syndrome, made in the image and likeness of God, just like everyone else, can and should be active members of the Church. Mark Bradford and his family have known that all along. … Read more
Is it possible, I wonder, that in labeling everything that doesn’t serve the elites as “Fascist,” and erecting our understanding of most of modern history on the defeat of Hitler and his Reich, that we have fallen pretty deeply into the error of “becoming a lot like what we hate?” This is my contention, as … Read more
I once saw a social media post making fun of people opposed to Critical Race Theory (CRT). It read, “I don’t know what Critical Race Theory is, but I’m against it.” The truth of the matter is that CRT is difficult to sum up, and so it has been hard for most people to understand … Read more
For such a big nation, America’s politics have gotten very small. The contiguous 48 states of our country have a population density of something like 105 people per square mile. Add in Hawaii and Alaska (which itself is bigger than Texas, California, and Montana combined) and the number drops all the way down to about … Read more
How do we educate our students for freedom? After all, many of them arrive in college today believing that the United States is systematically oppressive, hopelessly unjust, and that there is not much worth celebrating or defending about our country (or so they have been taught). So I often start my class by asking them … Read more
“Be not conformed to this age,” St. Paul warned the Romans, implying that Christians ought to fit a bit uncomfortably in this world. This discord shines forth brilliantly in office breakrooms across America on Ash Wednesday every year as someone inevitably brings in a king cake and invites colleagues to join in consuming it. The … Read more
Parents are not enough to protect kids from the harms of social media today. And current federal law is not up to the task either. The severity of the problem of social media to children and the inability of parents to effectively protect their kids necessitate a public policy solution. And as a new report … Read more
There is in psychiatry something called the “Goldwater rule,” which holds that it is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a psychiatric evaluation of a person he has not examined and received authorization to speak publicly about. I am not a psychiatrist, but, in the spirit of the rule: I am happy—proud, even—that Joe Biden … Read more
The temptation is eternal to use taxes, regulations, subsidies, and mandates to steer the economy in politically desired directions. Call it the Eternal Urge to Industrial Policy. Democrats, for the past 15 years, have tried to use government power to make corporations chase “green profits”: green energy, electric cars, green building, etc. Both parties seem … Read more
We should help young people experience how the promises God offers them far surpass the false promises of witchcraft and ungodly spirits. In a recent New York Times editorial, Ross Douthat called into question the naive, materialist readings of the new statue of a female pagan deity that was installed outside the New York courthouse. … Read more
As government workers—though fewer than a third of private‐sector office workers—get a day off Monday for Presidents’ Day (legally, though not in fact, George Washington’s Birthday), I’m thinking about presidents. Every few years Siena College asks historians and political scientists to rate the presidents. Presidential scholars love presidents who expand the size, scope and power … Read more
It isn’t a civil rights cause, it isn’t a new form of free expression, it isn’t a natural societal evolution. It’s insanity. And facilitating it, as in the case of the supposed “medical professionals” increasingly pushing it on children, is evil. We’re seeing this in more and more vivid detail as the transgender craze — … Read more
You guys, take notes, cuz this is how you do it. This is how you treat a member of your family when they enter the gender cult: Gender Nonconforming girl CRIES because her grandma won’t call her Mike as she requested The grandma is super nice about it, writes a personal card, and says she’s … Read more
Chloe Cole is perhaps the most well-known detransitioner in America. Yet, despite a growing presence in conservative media, her public profile hardly compares to transgender activists such as reality TV personality Jazz Jennings. Unlike Jennings, you won’t find Chloe and her story featured on the cover of Variety magazine. She’s unlikely ever to be named … Read more
America must catch up to Europe in accepting the role of peer influence in adolescent gender dysphoria. Transgenderism is the belief that every person has a “gender identity” (an inner sense of being male, female, something else, or in between) distinct from his or her sex and that, when the two conflict, gender identity should … Read more