A recently filed lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Newark is the latest legal challenge to the religious mission of Catholic schools and their First Amendment freedom to protect that mission. While portrayed in the media as a question of discrimination, the issue is whether or not a Catholic school has the right to expect employees […]
A preface to this article: I remember as a teenager how both the Internet and my hormones were exploding. I spent many a nights using dial up modems lusting after the latest digital pin-up. Front and center in my quest was the blond bombshell named Pamela Anderson. During the 90s, she was the crown jewel of all […]
The critical components for our Armor of Virtue are almost assembled. Faith first forged for us a shield. Hope next honed for us a helmet. Now charity – the third and final theological virtue – builds for us a breastplate. In medieval times, the breastplate served two functions for a knight. The first was bodily […]
Last week the inaugural column in this “Armor of Virtue” series aimed to awake the knight within us awaiting formation and to be sent forth on a saving mission. It presented a shield forged in the first theological virtue of faith. It was designed to serve as a first line of defense, to be held […]
School has begun and it is only a matter of time before what has become the perennially vexing problem of school prayer makes the headlines once again. From the Left, we can expect cautions against the “dangerous” practice of student-led prayer because of “how susceptible schoolchildren are to peer pressure”. My own upbringing was as […]
“Facts – not ideology – determine reality,” the American College of Pediatricians (ACP) said in a warning to legislators and educators about the dangers of surgical and medical sex change operations to children. “Conditioning children into believing that a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child […]
“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” – Mother Teresa “At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.” – Plato “For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.” – Judy Garland The concept […]
The Middle Ages molded men to serve their lords and their ladies as soldiers sheathed in armor. Knighthood wasn’t just a title or a symbolic honor as it is today. It was a position of trust forged within the complex relationships of medieval kingdoms and culture, requiring equal parts of metal and mettle. When placed […]
Sex is easy. Obvious statement, so what’s the point? Birds do it. Beasts do it. Humans do it. There are those who prowl about the world pursuing sexual prey, consuming and discarding conquests like they were earning points in some sick game, attempting to satisfy a voracious carnal urge with little concern of consequence or […]
Our relationship with our biological parents influences our happiness long after we’ve flown the nest. So says a new study showing how those raised by same-sex parents experience significantly more depression, obesity, and other problems in young adulthood than their peers. In the first study to examine children raised by same-sex parents into early adulthood, […]
So a radical feminist and two childless women walk into a courtroom. How do you expect them to rule on abortion or contraception? Their lives as they know them, depend on both. In Whole Woman’s Health vs. Hellerstedt, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a Texas law regulating abortion clinics as if they were any ordinary […]
New evidence from the United States suggests abstinence education is a reason why teen pregnancy has fallen to historically low rates. Nearly sixty percent of high school students had never had sex, up from 46% in 1991. Meanwhile, another new report links condom giveaways in schools with increases in teen pregnancy. This investigation of the […]
We are now in the Fortnight for Freedom — a two-week period the U.S. bishops have set aside for Catholics to appreciate our God-given right to religious freedom, the “first freedom” affirmed by the Bill of Rights. Our First Amendment freedoms are endangered in a myriad of ways today, and the threats to Catholic schools are greater […]
A leading medical journal published its first series on transgender health and reveals what appear to be major contradictions. On the one hand the journal argues there is nothing medically wrong with transgenderism. On the other hand, it argues transgenderism is a condition that requires medical attention, setting up transgenderism as the first non-medical condition […]
In letters to the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR) the presidents of five Catholic colleges cited their institutions’ faithfulness to Church teaching in explaining how the expansion of Title IX to include “gender identity” posed a significant threat to the religious mission of the colleges. College requests for religious exemptions from […]
The Diocese of Phoenix is joining with Arizona’s Catholic colleges to form a unique partnership in higher education that stresses an integral human formation at both Catholic and secular universities in the Grand Canyon State, according to school superintendent MaryBeth Mueller. “It is important for the Diocese to support Catholic colleges as an alternative to […]
It was a first in the United States. A woman, only identified as Lindsey, received a uterus from a deceased woman. Lindsey was born without a uterus, and she was hoping this transplant would enable her to get pregnant. At a press conference at the end of February, Cleveland doctors announced it was the first […]
I am an outspoken critic of gestational surrogacy, in which the gestational mother carries a child to term for another person or couple. I have noticed that many people do not understand the stakes in this issue. Pro-life people think, “Gosh, surrogacy makes babies, how can that be bad?” Feminists think, “Gosh, surrogacy allows people […]
The most terrifying aspect of living out Catholic sexuality is that it requires us to unflinchingly kill an entire world of potentials. In this world of dreamers, it can be very difficult to commit oneself to a given way of life simply because it entails giving up all other ways of life. It can be […]
None of us is promised happiness in this life. All of us are guaranteed sorrow. Indeed, sorrow is the classroom where we often learn our most valuable lessons and through which we can climb ever closer to heaven – where we are promised happiness. Perhaps that’s why I am so drawn to praying the Sorrowful Mysteries […]
The legal battle will continue for Catholic colleges and other religious nonprofits and institutions challenging the Obama administration’s contraception mandate following a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to send the issue back to lower courts. “We are nearing what seems to be a very happy ending to a terrible chapter in America’s […]
[Editor’s note: Originally published June, 2006] Mary and mercy came to our house this May. After years of chasing an illusive dream of someday organizing our entire home, I finally managed, with God’s assistance, to do just that. It was a ruthless and exhaustive endeavor. Closets, cabinets, drawers, shelves and rooms were systematically purged of […]
Pope Francis’ Amoris Laetitia (Joy of Love) should be required reading in pre-Cana classes, say commentators, because the Pope explains Catholic teaching on marriage so wisely and elegantly to the current generation. Throughout the papal exhortation, you can find the themes of the four marks or “keys” of married love: faithfulness, freedom, fruitfulness, and a […]
When I was child, I thought of mercy as something that was granted only to a person who really needed it, such as a big sinner, or when I did something really bad. I never thought about how mercy can be a part of everyday life. If we are open to the expansive nature of […]
