The Narthex

Paul Benjamin Linton is author of the magisterial Abortion under State Constitutions -- which has gone through three editions -- and the recognized pro-life authority on that subject. While Roe v. Wade held abortion policy hostage to an imagined federal “right,” Linton reminded us that every state has its own…

Fidelity (in Hebrew, hesed) is one of the Lord’s great attributes. The history of salvation is the history of hesed. Because God's revelation to man is so anchored in fidelity, hesed is an extraordinarily rich Biblical concept. Adam sinned, yet “even when he lost Your friendship, You did not abandon…

Jerome R. Daly was the most decorated helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War. After retiring from the Army in 1982, he became a Catholic priest. Vietnam was a war in which combat helicopters played a pre-eminent role. According to a 2018 report by Gary Roush of the Vietnam Helicopter Pilots…

“Diversity” is a mantra very much in contemporary vogue, although arguably one whose end-goal is often unclear. Any group needs some principle of unity; even the poster children of diversity have to have something that unites one diverse group vis-à-vis others. Otherwise, they’d not be a group but simply a…

"Diversity" is the mot du jour, celebrated in all sorts of circles. Alas, many of those celebrating “diversity” are unclear about whether or how it connects to “unity.” Perhaps the readings for Pentecost can help. The central truth of Pentecost is the Holy Spirit, who is the principle of unity.…

A feisty fellow I knew liked to ask Protestants just what they were protesting. A wise Protestant might answer in terms of a positive protestation, for example, the rule of sola scriptura. A bellicose Protestant, in contrast, might reply “No popery!” Note well: the word “protest” can have either a…

Has our modern world made things that, for earlier generations came naturally, harder? And, in fact, do those things have to be harder? Tim Carney, author of Family Unfriendly, says there are contemporary changes in society that do make being a parent harder, both objectively (if kids don’t have sidewalks,…

Once more, Ascension Thursday is upon us and once again we see the liturgical and theological incoherence the Catholic bishops of the United States caused, in the name of being “pastoral” while exercising canonical fiat, in the liturgical calendar. I have three major criticisms of what they have done --…

In a recent post I criticized the wave of parish closings and the overall mania for “downsizing” the Church in the United States. I argued, against the naysayers who cite “numbers” and “statistics,” that if bishops and priests acted like bishops and priests rather than statisticians and actuaries, they’d stop…

This past Sunday, May 5, was Easter in various parts of the Orthodox Church which still use the Julian Calendar for liturgical purposes. To these Orthodox: Christos voskrese! Voistinnu voskrese! (Christ is risen! He is truly risen!) I mention Orthodox Easter because while this year (as is typical) it falls…

Even Alasdair MacIntyre, among the greatest of living Thomists, thinks that believers might do better to argue from justice rather than to appeal to human dignity. And Harvard’s Steven Pinker writes derisively of the “stupidity of dignity.” Critics admit that the rhetoric of dignity surfaces in the United Nations Universal…

A subtle aspect of last Sunday’s First Reading has to do with ecclesiastical growth. The main thrust of the reading was the suspicion with which the Church in Jerusalem (i.e., Peter and the other Apostles) initially received Paul, former persecutor and now evangelist, who “spoke out boldly in the name…

Over 65 years ago Karol Wojtyła wrote on “The Significance of Obligation.” In that text, Wojtyła probed the universal human experience of obligation -- “I ought to do X” -- asking what it tells us about itself. That experience teaches us three things: about obligation itself, about responsibility, and about…

On April 16, the Wall Street Journal reported that five large book publishers have joined the case filed by a sixth large publisher to prevent the State of Iowa from restricting the purchase or use of certain books for school libraries and classrooms (Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, “Major Publishers Join Iowa…

In the wake of Vatican II, all sorts of Catholic practices and popular devotions were deconstructed. The process often occurred for simplistic and callow reasons, with no thought to why those practices and devotions had become so established or what would be lost -- including in terms of follow-on effects…