Nobody denies that conspiracies occur. They happen every time two or more people collude in order to secure some malign end. When people criticize “conspiracy theories,” it is a particular kind of conspiracy that they find implausible. […]
One of the striking features of the catastrophe in Ukraine is how unambiguously the principles of just war doctrine seem to apply. On the one hand, Russia’s invasion cannot be justified given the criteria of […]
In a recent Word on Fire video, Bishop Robert Barron comments on the currently fashionable chatter about “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (or DEI, as they are commonly abbreviated). In much political and cultural debate and institutional policy, […]
In his classic book Suicide of the West, James Burnham famously characterized liberalism as “the ideology of Western suicide.” I’ve been meaning for some time to write up an essay on the book. This isn’t it. […]
Recently, Alasdair MacIntyre presented a talk on the theme “Human Dignity: A Puzzling and Possibly Dangerous Idea?” at the Fall Conference of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre […]
In a recent post on my personal blog, I argued that a Catholic can in good conscience take one of the Covid-19 vaccines, but also that such vaccination should not be mandatory. In a follow-up post, I […]
Suffering, atheists frequently assure us, is not what we would expect if God exists. You might suppose, then, that where there is greater suffering, there will be fewer believers in God, and where there is […]
In Summa Theologiae (II-II.168.2-4), Aquinas discusses the essential role that play and humor have in human life. They are necessary for the health of the individual, insofar as in their absence the mind becomes weary […]
Consider two groups of Catholics: First, divorced Catholics who disobey the Church’s teaching by forming a “new union” in which they are sexually active, thereby committing adultery. And second, traditionalist Catholics attached to the Extraordinary […]
In his book The Early Papacy: To the Synod of Chalcedon in 451, Fr. Adrian Fortescue argues that the essential Catholic claims about the authority of the pope can all be found in patristic texts from […]
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