Francis the Pacifist
When is it good to kill another human being? The only correct answer, the one offered by the Church, is “never.” As Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for...
Category: Commentary
The Pope’s Clear Position on Ukraine
Wars make strange bedfellows, and their first casualty is truth. War is always the hour of darkness, when disorder reigns, brute power sets the rules, and the innocent are crushed; when human appetites — lust, greed, rage, revenge — are...
The pro-life movement and ethical principles
Since the news broke of the leaked draft of the decision in Roe v. Wade, I have been pleasantly surprised that many pro-lifers are expressing the notion that “the real work starts now.” The authors of these articles and social...
A Catholic media tragedy
Yesterday brought devastating news for the Church and Catholic journalism, when Catholic News Service (CNS) announced that they will be shutting down their Washington, DC and New York bureaus at the end of the year, and that all of its...
Do We Really Value the Lives of the Unborn?
The “direct action” techniques associated with groups such as Operation Rescue have always been controversial among pro-life activists. Is blocking the entrance to an abortion clinic an effective way to save lives—or do such actions merely damage the pro-life cause...
Being Pro-Life post-Roe
In Let Us Dream, Pope Francis cuts through the partisanship and the ideologies in our world to offer a simple diagnosis of the sickness responsible for the decay and moral rot that infects our culture. He calls this illness the...
Opening the Sense Gates with the Liturgy
The Mahayana Buddhist scripture Vimalakirti Nirdesa, also known as the Vimalakirti Sutra, contains one of the most radical ascetic statements in any religion’s canonical texts. The main figure of the text, Vimalakirti, is feigning illness so that he can preach...
When Catholics resist both faith and science
After completing my freshman year of college, my friend Chuck, a physics major, helped me get a summer job at the Center for Superconductivity Research. I wasn’t studying physics or a related field at the time—I hadn’t yet chosen a...
Pope Francis Advocates for Algorethics
Hollywood actor Diedrich Bader, known for his comedy roles, says, “I always have my kids say ‘thank you’ to Alexa so that hopefully in the future our robot overlords will remember their civility.” Jokes aside, pondering the many moral implications...
Sacrificing to Protect our Common Home
On this Earth Day, there are calls to “Invest in our Planet.” After all, it is the only one we’ve got! Care for creation has been a major theme during the pontificate of Pope Francis. His opponents claim that the...
Tales of Dissent, Dialogue, and Development
Recently, two prominent churchmen called for a change in the Church’s teachings on sexuality. Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg said in an interview with a German Catholic news agency that the Church’s teachings on homosexuality were no longer correct and...
Some Questions for the Rescuers
In the wake of the discovery of the remains of five aborted fetuses in the home of pro-life activist Lauren Handy, many pro-lifers have grappled with making sense of a series of events that the mainstream media have characterized, with...
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