The Dispatch
What does the Church teaching about doing “soft” drugs?
“Smoking a joint is not a sin. The Church teaches that it’s wrong to get drunk but licit to take a relaxing drink. Now, smoking [...]
Speaking like persons, not a corporation
Features
Readers are no doubt familiar with this: The USCCB’s Twitter account posted a graphic a few days ago listing seven attitudes we might adopt in participating in the Synod on Synodality. The post was lambasted [...]
The decline of reading and the rise of stupidity: An interview with Mark Bauerlein
Books
Mark Bauerlein is Emeritus Professor of English at Emory University, where he has taught since earning his PhD in English at UCLA in 1989. For two years (2003-05) he served as Director of the Office [...]
Essay
Thinking with the early Church Fathers
For Byzantine Christians living in the northern hemisphere, it’s a bit unfortunate that January abounds with absolutely top-tier thinkers, as we can so easily overlook them in the holiday haze. These luminaries deserve more attention. [...]
Analysis
Losing (and regaining) our sense of the sacred in a “bourgeois” society
In 2016, Pope Francis gave an interview to Fr. Antonio Spadaro, editor-in-chief of Civiltà Cattolica, in which he wondered why it is that so many young people are interested in the traditional Roman liturgical rites, [...]
Features
Opinion: The spiritual capital punishment of faithful Catholics
The Vatican directive aiming to effectively eliminate the widespread celebration of the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Mass requires the cooperation of bishops and priests (Pope Francis’ Motu Proprio Traditionis Custodes and “Responses to doubts” of [...]
Essay
Mark Twain’s correct solution to the race problem
Here is today’s quiz: What 19th-century novel points the way to a lasting solution to the racial tensions afflicting America today? If you said Uncle Tom’s Cabin, you’re wrong. As President Lincoln remarked, Harriet Beecher [...]
Books
The horrors of Communism and the resilience of faith in Albania
Although all Communist regimes persecuted religion to varying degrees, nowhere did the anti-religious campaign employ such diabolically creative methods of cruelty, and nowhere was it as fatally thorough, as in Albania. Isolated from the rest [...]
Essay
“Strange Rites” and the promise of natural religion
Along with many other cultural commentators, I have been tracing for the past many years the phenomenon of religious disaffiliation, the sobering fact that armies of people, especially the young, are leaving institutional religion behind. [...]
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Military historians talk about the “fog of war,” the impossibility of knowing what’s going on during the confusion of battle. The idea can be extended to the struggles of daily life—that’s why we talk about [...] -
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With so many challenges facing us today when it comes to COVID—new variants, shifting directives from numerous authorities, endless questions about so many complex factors—I was heartened to read this bit of sensitive sanity from [...] -
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brineyman:
I’m disappointed to see the acceptance of drug use even discussed on CWR. Our culture’s casual view of drugs is…
Mom of Many:
Why is a vaccinated person's fear of the inefficacy of the shot my responsibility because I won't take it? In…
Ann Denny:
So excited for this new project. I was raised Catholic but honestly have always felt ignorant when it comes to…
