The Dispatch
Extra, extra! News and views for Wednesday, March 4, 2026
How to Write Well – and Why (The Catholic Thing): “Bad writing suggests confused and lazy thinking. We fix, or at least improve, our reasoning [...]
J.J. Scarisbrick, Life’s Happy Warrior—Requiescat in pace
Essay
John Joseph Scarisbrick, MBE, died peacefully on Saturday, February 28th, at 5:40 am with his two beloved daughters, Emma and Sarah, by his side. A towering figure in English Catholic life for over sixty years, [...]
Immigration, enforcement, and Catholics
Columns
Effectively, open borders are a bad idea. That’s true whether they result from explicit policy or from failure to enforce the law effectively. The population of the world outside the United States is about 8 [...]
Columns
Pope Leo, the Joshua Tree, and the Paschal Mystery
I recently returned from delivering a lecture at the annual Los Angeles religious education congress and, as is my custom when possible, turned it into a “bring-a-kid-to-work” adventure. This time, my middle-school daughter and I [...]
Essay
The State of Our Divided Union
I was rather disappointed in the recent State of the Union address, but not for the reasons many readers might think. I believe that most Americans watched it the way one watches a meticulously overproduced [...]
Features
Pro-life activist questions inclusion of Candace Owens in speaker’s bureau
Amanda Achtman is a Canadian Catholic pro-life advocate. Ethics Director for Canadian Physicians for Life and founder of the Dying to Meet You project, Achtman has built a reputation for herself as an articulate and [...]
Features
“We need to know where we are going”: An interview with Bishop Erik Varden
Editor’s note: This interview, originally published at CWR on November 14, 2024, is reposted as an introduction to those readers who want to know more about Bishop Erik Varden, who has been leading the Lenten [...]
Essay
No, AI does not have human-level intelligence
In an article at Nature, Eddy Keming Chen, Mikhail Belkin, Leon Bergen, and David Danks ask, “Does AI already have human-level intelligence?” and claim that “the evidence is clear” that the answer is Yes. (Though the article [...]
Features
Actress and producer Siobhan Fallon Hogan reflects on faith, family, and film
You might not know the name Siobhan Fallon Hogan, but you almost certainly recognize her face. A prominent character actor for the last three decades, she has appeared in films including Forrest Gump, Only You, Men in Black, Holes, Daddy [...]
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Effectively, open borders are a bad idea. That’s true whether they result from explicit policy or from failure to enforce the law effectively. The population of the world outside the United States is about 8 [...] -
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Just a week after Archbishop Coakley, the new president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), met with President Trump, Vice President Vance, Secretary Rubio, and Secretary Noem, three U.S. cardinals ignored Archbishop Coakley’s [...] -
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DeaconEdwardPeitler:
Nick: I am one who strongly believes that it is not within the purview of any pope, bishop or priest…
mrscracker:
Voodoo doesn't have to involve sacrificing animals. The local variety uses roots and curses in bottles. It's been practised in…
