Columns

Is the family still fundamental?

April 3, 2025 James Kalb 19

Last month, I suggested that subsidiarity comes from the idea that social order begins with the family, and proceeds from there to ever broader communities and ultimately to the whole world. This view makes the […]

Columns

Yet another comment on ordo amoris

March 1, 2025 James Kalb 33

Vice President JD Vance’s recent comment that we should love and assist those close to us before those who are more distant provoked an outburst of argument that eventually involved even the Pope. The comment […]

Columns

What way to a better world?

January 14, 2025 James Kalb 15

If we want our social and political efforts to be useful, their direction should depend on the way the world is going. But people aren’t good at reading the signs of the times. As Yogi […]

Columns

MAGA, Trump, and the vision thing

December 2, 2024 James Kalb 37

Progressives believe in “progress,” which, in practice, means extending the “arc of history”—the general tendency of thought and social organization—toward a windowless global technocracy that manages the whole of life. Many people—including Catholics who merge […]

Columns

The Church in an age of anxiety

November 4, 2024 James Kalb 15

What direction should Catholicism take in America today? It’s a new setting, historically speaking, and despite all efforts, we don’t seem to be dealing with it well. We live in a democratic consumer society that […]

Columns

Is Christianity “conservative”?

October 10, 2024 James Kalb 28

Last month I pointed out serious problems with progressive Christianity, mostly having to do with the progressive rejection of transcendence. To fill out the discussion, it seems I ought to say something about conservative Christianity. […]

Columns

How real is our democracy?

August 1, 2024 James Kalb 57

Is our society democratic? It is compared with many countries. Iran, for example, has elections that matter, so it is democratic to that extent. Even so, what counts here as a harsh or contemptuous response […]