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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
Many people have noted that “woke” ideology, which views inequality as an intolerable evil caused by pervasive racism, sexism, homophobia, and the like, has a religious quality: it defines good and evil, explains life and […]
Why is public life collapsing? Why the falsehoods? The slanders? The contempt and hatred for fellow citizens? The open sympathy for political violence? The indifference to truth, even among those who claim to be its […]
Something about the country makes people ask the question. People who love our country say it is exceptional. Those who don’t might prefer other words. For better or worse, it does seem different in some […]
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