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What is freedom?
We talk about freedom as if we knew what it is, but it’s a tricky business. Issues relating to health are a constant source of dispute, so they dramatize some of the problems. Medical freedom […]
Ecclesia et Civitas
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Tradition, the Church, and the World
The dispute over the continuing value of the Traditional Latin Mass has drawn attention to the question of tradition and its role in the Church. That’s a complicated matter. Tradition is important, but not the […]
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The Church in the new America
The Church has always been patriotic here. America offered a better life to millions of Catholics fleeing poverty and oppression, and allowed the Church freedom to worship, evangelize, do charity, and run her own affairs. […]
Ecclesia et Civitas
Pope Francis, the Faith, and faith in historical evolution
As a thinker Pope Francis puzzles. He raises issues, often ambiguously and in ways that unsettle things, but does not resolve them. He calls for encounter and dialogue, but refuses to answer questions. And he […]
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The pluribus and the unum
Government is difficult. How can anyone run other people’s lives when he likely has trouble running his own? A basic difficulty is the old problem of the one and the many. In philosophy that problem […]
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What to do? Views from the past
Catholics today are in a difficult position. They have come to believe that active involvement in social and political life is a basic part of living the Faith. But the general conditions leading to that […]
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Left, Right, and Church teaching: Seasonal reflections on politics
What life are we leading today? And what is it for? Lent has been a time to reflect on such things, and Easter and Spring are seasons of rebirth. But sometimes reflection brings little comfort, […]
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The Church and the suicide of the West
In 2006 Pope Benedict spoke of a peculiar Western self-hatred that is nothing short of pathological. It is commendable that the West is trying to be more open, to be more understanding of the values […]
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What kind of tyranny?
Reciprocity, the idea that relationships go both ways, is a bedrock social principle. Reciprocity doesn’t require equality—I’m not equal to John Roberts or the cop who tickets me for double parking—but it does require mutual […]
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Identity and Catholicism
Identity pervades Catholic thought. Things are what they are, and that doesn’t change when our way of thinking changes. A human being is either male or female, and whichever it is stays that way. Similarly, […]