We live in a society that has become increasingly divided. On one side we have technocrats. These include the rich, powerful, and well-positioned, as well as the ambitious and credentialed people who serve and want […]
People have become extraordinarily anxious. The situation is most extreme among political progressives. Surveys show that political and social attitudes among conservatives have mostly been rather stable in recent years, but among liberals they have been […]
A couple of months ago I reviewed R.R. Reno’s book Return of the Strong Gods, in which the author calls for strengthening the loves and loyalties that hold Western societies together. At the end of […]
Methods of communication have huge social effects. Before the written word people lived tribally. All communication was word-of-mouth, and social order was personal, local, and traditional. Religion was myth, custom, and folklore. Among the Old […]
Many people today, especially conservatives and Christians, find it alarming that basic human connections and loyalties keep weakening in favor of impersonal economic and administrative arrangements. The tendency has been going on for a long […]
This is the third and last part of my discussion of Thomism and political liberalism. From the first two essays (see here and here) I think that we can conclude that one important thing that […]
My monthly column is called “Ecclesia et Civitas” because it mostly has to do with the relation between the Church and the secular community. That’s a hard topic to get a handle on. We are […]
It has been more than a year since the Sino-Vatican agreement signed on September 22, 2018, and the situation of China’s Catholics continues to attract media attention. In my long career of researching and publishing […]
Last month I commented on Catholicism and nationality. My basic point was that the existence of particular peoples is a natural and beneficial part of human life that should be respected. That point is often […]
Are political liberalism and Catholicism friends or enemies? The debate surrounding this question has been going on for a couple centuries. It was already well underway in 1832 when Pope Gregory XVI intervened in it […]
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