The Narthex
English Should Be the USA’s Official Language
Language is the most basic element of assimilation and culture
By John M. Grondelski | September 2nd 2025 12:18 PMPresident Trump issued an Executive Order declaring the U.S. Government should conduct its business in English. That order elicited the usual complaints from the secular accompaniment chorus, who thought it exclusionary and impeding peoples’ access to services. As we’ve seen in pictures from a deportation, it’s not infrequent that family…
READ FULL BLOG POSTNo Judge Is above the Law
No state may exempt itself or its officials from federal authority
By John M. Grondelski | August 28th 2025 11:00 AMHannah Dugan, the Wisconsin circuit court judge who last April berated ICE agents in the Milwaukee courthouse and smuggled a wanted illegal alien out a back door, learned this week that wearing a black robe does not place one above the law. A federal judge ruled that her judicial status…
READ FULL BLOG POSTA Virginia School Facilitated Abortions
Will it turn the governor's race?
By John M. Grondelski | August 27th 2025 9:53 PMA controversy roiling in northern Virginia (NoVA) illustrates the dirty, clandestine alliance between abortionists, the political jurisdictions they’ve bought, and the use of societal infrastructure to advance pre-natal killing. Fairfax County, Virginia, is adjacent to Washington, DC. Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) operates all schools in the county. All members…
READ FULL BLOG POSTThe Judicial Philosophy of Ketanji Brown Jackson
She does not even attempt to mask her activism
By John M. Grondelski | August 26th 2025 11:17 AMThe “jurisprudence” of Ketanji Brown Jackson, Joe Biden’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, was the subject of an extended essay by George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley. It’s worth reading (link below). Brown Jackson has repeatedly denounced her colleagues -- including fellow liberals Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor…
READ FULL BLOG POSTWhy is 'Basic Patriotism' Demonized?
A look at the reasons behind antipathy to the flags of England and the USA
By John M. Grondelski | August 25th 2025 12:37 PMRod Dreher, of Benedict Option fame, opined on X that countries where “basic patriotism is demonized” are “on the brink of civil conflict.” He made his observation in response to a post by a British man in Devonshire whose display of the Union Jack in his garden elicited a note…
READ FULL BLOG POSTDads' Views & Summer Jobs
Paternal approaches to reality and experiences of hard work shape kids' political perspectives
By John M. Grondelski | August 22nd 2025 10:40 AMA recent TikTok video posted to X is ostensibly the work of a white mother explaining to her 10-year-old the difference between a Democrat and a Republican. The woman claims that her child asked what differentiated the two and that she explained it by using an analogy involving the homeless.…
READ FULL BLOG POSTReligion: A Matter of Faith or Feelings?
Insipid hymns reveal a trade-in of a Catholicism built on faith and reason for one of emotions
By John M. Grondelski | August 20th 2025 12:33 PMAnthony Esolen has spilled no small amount of ink challenging the doctrinal and other issues that plague contemporary Catholic hymnody. Demonstrating how today’s “Catholic” ditties upend the traditional liturgical principle lex orandi, lex credendi (how we pray expresses what we believe) has almost become a cottage industry online. Recently, Trent…
READ FULL BLOG POSTUnimaginable Things, Love of God, Restless Hearts
Man has a limitless desire for more, which should lead us to our Highest Good
By John M. Grondelski | August 19th 2025 11:08 AMO God, who have prepared for those who love you good things which no eye can see, fill our hearts, we pray, with the warmth of your love, so that, loving you in all things and above all things, we may attain your promises, which surpass every human desire. Through…
READ FULL BLOG POSTHow Many Murders Make an 'Emergency'?
Real love for the poor is ensuring their neighborhoods are safe, not a murder every 46 hours
By John M. Grondelski | August 18th 2025 11:33 AMThe danger with a status quo is that it “normalizes” the prevailing situation. It makes one think the abnormal is somehow "normal." That’s particularly problematic when the status quo is the result of decades of “defining deviancy down,” as the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan observed over 30 years ago…
READ FULL BLOG POSTThe Significance of the Assumption
Mary shows the more noble status to which humanity has been elevated by Redemption in Christ
By John M. Grondelski | August 15th 2025 11:50 AMThe Solemnity of the Assumption is these days an underappreciated and undervalued holy day. Indeed, next year it won’t even be a feast of precept (a holy day of obligation) because of the American bishops’ “Saturday-or-Monday-get-out-of-Church-free-on-certain-holy-days” rule. The Assumption stands in a straight line from Easter to the Ascension (another…
READ FULL BLOG POSTStreets Are Thoroughfares, Not Beds
A brief for Catholic realism on homelessness and public order
By John M. Grondelski | August 14th 2025 11:08 AMTwo days ago, alongside President Trump’s announcement to federalize law enforcement in Washington, D.C., which could include dismantling homeless encampments, I tweeted “streets are thoroughfares, not beds.” In my follow-up on this site, I also identified the local Catholic Church as a possible critic, especially if “law enforcement includes cleaning…
READ FULL BLOG POSTRemembering Dr. Thaddeus 'Ted' Gromada
He was the heart and soul of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America
By John M. Grondelski | August 13th 2025 12:01 PMDr. Thaddeus 'Ted' Gromada, a beloved figure in the Polish American scholarly world, died on August 10 at the age of 96. For decades he was the spiritus movens of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America (PIASA) in New York -- the role in which…
READ FULL BLOG POSTFederalizing Washington DC Law Enforcement
For some commentators, the 274 murders in DC in 2023 appears normal & acceptable
By John M. Grondelski | August 12th 2025 12:53 PMPresident Trump’s announcement to enhance federal control of policing in Washington DC to fight crime in the nation’s capital is welcome. Talking heads insist that “crime is down” in DC, that Trump’s move is “cover” for not wanting to discuss the Epstein case, that it usurps “home rule,” and augurs…
READ FULL BLOG POSTFatherhood, Adoption, & Inheritance
Scripture invokes images and experiences increasingly rare and marginalized in our culture
By John M. Grondelski | August 11th 2025 12:27 PM"Almighty ever-living God, whom, taught by the Holy Spirit, we dare to call our Father, bring, we pray, to perfection in our hearts the spirit of adoption as your sons and daughters, that we may merit to enter into the inheritance which you have promised." The Collect for the 19th…
READ FULL BLOG POSTThe Pilgrimages Have Begun
Faithful from all corners of Poland will converge on Czestochowa, Mary's national shrine, on Aug. 15
By John M. Grondelski | August 8th 2025 11:39 AMThe pilgrimages across Poland have begun. Every year in early August, from every corner of Poland, people set out on walking pilgrimages across the country to converge on Czestochowa, Mary's national shrine, on August 15. It's a multi-generational tradition. Parishes and local communities assemble and walk, usually 12-15 miles per…
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