The Narthex

How Politicians Coopt the Christian Message – with Christian Complicity Earlier I voiced objection to the Massachusetts nativity scene that replaced Baby Jesus with an “ICE was here” sign because it diverts from the purpose of a Nativity scene. A manger on public view is a proclamation of faith in…

A vicious controversy has just erupted in Poland over the “Round Table.” The “Round Table” refers both to the literal circular table and the historic discussions held around it in early 1989, when some parts of the Polish opposition met with the ruling Communists to discuss the country’s future. Out…

December 15, 1791, stands as a quiet hinge of history, since on that day the ratification of the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution achieved final assent through Virginia’s approval, thereby giving formal civic expression to an idea whose roots run far deeper than Philadelphia, deeper than Enlightenment…

Why are Prisoners in Prison? On December 14, Pope Leo XIV celebrated Mass for the “Jubilee of Prisoners.” His homily is replete with “hope.” Sometimes it almost suggests the Parousia is about to arrive, immanently. Leo says we must build a “society established on new criteria, and ultimately on charity…”…

Timothy Reichert’s “Christian Ownership Maximalism” is an original article (linked below) in the December 2025 issue of First Things. It deserves wide readership, thorough debate, and I’d argue adoption in Catholic circles. Christendom as we have known it -- whether the religiously suffused culture of medieval Europe or the ethnic…

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), an independent U.S. scientific body within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that provides official recommendations on vaccine use, decided by an 8-3 vote to end the general recommendation that all newborns be vaccinated against hepatitis B within the first hours…

Fresh off last week’s discovery that "People, Look East" might be coded propaganda for a clandestine versus orientem revival, I approached this Sunday’s liturgy with heightened vigilance. Imagine my dismay when the next hymn announced itself: the venerable "On Jordan’s Bank" -- that paragon of Advent piety which, upon scrutiny,…

As I wrote previously, the EU's liberticidal Chat Control law seemed to have been definitively shelved in October. Strong opposition from Germany and other member states led to the belief that Brussels' Orwellian project had finally foundered. But anyone familiar with the mechanisms of the European Union knows well that…

“Textualism” and “originalism” emerged as approaches to interpreting the Constitution in order to reconnect American judicial decisions with the document they were supposedly applying. The “living Constitution,” so in vogue from roughly the 1950s through 2000 (though not really firmly buried until Anthony Kennedy finally left the Supreme Court), unfettered…

On November 23, Slovenia said no to euthanasia. With 53% of voters voting against and 46% in favor, Slovenians rejected a law that would have allowed terminally ill patients to receive assistance in ending their lives. This was not a narrow margin due to abstentions: Turnout reached nearly 41%, with…

Three international experts, interviewed for La Verità (Nov. 24) by journalist Francesco Borgonovo, denounced surrogacy as a form of violence against women and children. From the United Nations to clinical psychology, a unanimous chorus is speaking out against a practice that normalizes the commodification of bodies and selects life according…

United in life and dance—that's how we all remember them—Alice and Ellen Kessler were also united in their final farewell, with a double assisted suicide. Alice and Ellen Kessler, the famous German artistic duo the Kessler Twins, beloved in Italy since the 1960s, have died at the age of 89.…

COP30, the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference, opens today. The meetings will begin in Belém, a Brazilian port city located on the edge of the Amazon, and will end on November 21. Expectations are high among large sectors of the establishment, lobbies, and environmental movements, but there's also a…

 For the children of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the children of the light. – Luke 16:8

SNAP Shutdown The continuing shutdown of the federal government has interrupted SNAP payments. SNAP is a federal program to provide food money to the poor. There are currently more than 41 million SNAP recipients. This seems to be one of those areas where the priority of the poor comes into…