The Narthex

The Psalmist sings of praise and wisdom from an unexpected source: “out of the mouth of children and of babes” (8:2). Occasionally one can find another source: in advertisements. An ad seen this morning in the Washington Metro was headlined “Childhood Passes Faster Than a Weekend.” Don’t it? Perhaps I’m…

Once upon a time, not too long ago, June used to be associated with marriage. People spoke of “June weddings.” But while Stevie Wonder might have just been calling to say “I love you,” there was something prescient in his lyric about “no wedding Saturday within the month of June.”…

Princeton Professor Robert George has launched a new initiative that declares June “Fidelity Month” [see here]. He started the effort with a June 1 webinar, featuring a religiously diverse panel, discussing the importance of fidelity as social glue in three areas: marriage, local community, and national patriotism. George has…

My eldest son, John Zygmunt, graduated college last month with a double major. I’m proud of him and happily joined his commencement exercises at George Mason University (GMU) in Fairfax, Virginia. GMU, one of the largest public universities in the Commonwealth, proudly boasted that this year’s 11,000 undergrad and grad…

On Thursday, May 25, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down an important decision in the case of Tyler v. Hennepin County, Minnesota et al. Bottom line up front: a unanimous Supreme Court swatted down Hennepin County’s property tax collecting policy. I’m commenting on it because there are aspects of the…

The Church is in the post-Ascension period, waiting for the promised Paraclete. Jesus instructed His Apostles to stay in Jerusalem to await the coming of the Holy Spirit. Jesus is notoriously ambiguous on timing. The Spirit will come “in a few days.” Luckily, He set His departure date and was…

As undergraduates at St. Mary’s College in Orchard Lake, Michigan, we were required as part of our core curriculum to take a course in art and/or music, and “Introduction to Humanities” fulfilled the requirement. I’ll admit that, as a 19-year-old, I wasn’t excited about the class and it didn’t help…

May 18 would have been Karol Wojtyła’s 103rd birthday. In the 18 years since his death, a whole generation has grown up not knowing St. John Paul II. It’s not accidental that there’s a new character assassination effort to stain his reputation and minimize his contributions to the Church. Monika…

With Mother’s Day in the rear view mirror and fresh events crowding the daily “news” cycle, the controversy some retailers generated this year by offering women an “opt out” of Mother’s Day mailings and specials will likely soon be forgotten -- until it returns next year. I’ve tried to showcase…

Catholics have often been accused of a misguided relationship to the Blessed Virgin Mary, of “putting Mary on a pedestal.” That’s not just a Protestant canard, either. Catholics who claim the mantle of following Vatican II argue that traditional Mariology elevated Our Lady at the expense of showcasing her as…

As a moral theologian, I am interested in just war theory. Just war theory, which governs whether a country can go to war (jus ad bellum) and what it can do in war (jus in bello), is essentially a nation’s right to self-defense. That’s why I reject the arguments that…

Among the ambiguities of his Disney appearance, Pope Francis remarked that the Church’s “catechesis on sex is still in diapers.” Various commentators have voiced disappointment or even outrage over that phrase. I take it as a compliment. The Church’s sexual ethics is still in -- more accurately, into -- diapers.…

In announcing that non-bishops would be able to vote in this fall’s Synod on Synodality, Rome tried simultaneously to hype and downplay the news. Channeling its inner Leslie Neilsen, the synodal website blandly headlined the change as “Some News for the October 2023 Assembly.” General Relator Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich gave…

After delivering a muddled set of remarks about assisted suicide which now the Pontifical Academy for Life claims do not mean what most people think they mean, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia wants us really to believe that he was merely engaging in a thought experiment about how Italian civil law should…

Pope Francis has on several occasions voiced support for an idea, percolating among the Vatican’s professional ecumenical and liturgical classes, to establish a “common” date for Easter between Catholics and Orthodox. The current driver seems to be wanting to “do something” to mark the 1,700th anniversary of the First Council…