The Narthex

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…

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…

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.…

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…