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From the NOR Dossiers

Revert's Rostrum by Casey Chalk

Refugees on the Run, Pilgrims Without a Home
January-February 2025God graciously gives some persecuted Christians opportunities to start again. He continues to work in the life of the D’Souza family via their many advocates.
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An American Catholic in Panama
November 2024All the parishes offer an uninspiring modern liturgical style, the banality of which partly explains why Protestants are making such impressive inroads here.
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A Requiem for Old Rosy
September 2024Rosecrans had a reputation as a vocal Catholic with an aggressive evangelizing impulse. He kneeled alongside his soldiers at Mass, and regularly prayed the Rosary.
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The Seventh Last Word
June 2024Christ's final word is not a cry of desperation or defeat but a “victory cry,” a uniting of His will with God, pregnant with eager expectation of everlasting joy.
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The Sixth Last Word
April 2024At death will our thoughts be aimed at how to defeat it or how to make the experience an extension of the redemptive work of the Cross?
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The Fifth Last Word
January-February 2024We followers of Christ are likewise called to thirst for souls, to burn with desire to see others saved — not only our family and friends but everyone we meet.
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The Fourth Last Word
November 2023Through our pain, we are capable of actually participating in the salvific economy of Christ. This spiritual power is all the more acute at death.
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The Third Last Word
September 2023Jesus chose for His mother’s guardian the disciple “whom He loved.” There were few, if any, who were better fit for such an important task than St. John.
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Perspicuity: Protestantism’s Achilles’ Heel
June 2023Within the Reformed tradition, the most famous articulation of perspicuity, or clarity, is found in the 17th-century Westminster Confession of Faith.
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The Second Last Word
April 2023To die well means to place our physical concerns, however legitimate, within the broader context of the spiritual, which is infinitely more important.
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The First Last Word
January-February 2023The pedagogy of Christ’s first last word goes far beyond exemplifying mercy to tormentors. Forgiveness also serves an evangelical purpose.
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Are Catholics the New WASPs?
November 2022For many, Catholicism as a religion has become irrelevant as they have capitulated to secular American culture, as did WASPs in the mainline Protestant denominations.
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The Post-Liberal Project & the American Polis
September 2022The post-liberal project is an interesting intellectual exercise that offers cautions regarding Catholicism’s imperfect alliance with the current American regime.
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Mystic Chords of Memory
June 2022Would I have learned to appreciate classical music — and even the very best of jazz or blues — if I hadn’t first learned to appreciate the best of rock and pop?
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For Mature Audiences Only
April 2022America’s conception of sex is downright sophomoric, and its overhaul starts with understanding what sex is and what it is for.
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Overcoming Our Culture of Indifference
January-February 2022We are called to care for the sojourner and to be sympathetic and responsive to the needs of those fleeing poverty, political oppression, or religious persecution.
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On Friendship
November 2021If friendship really is tied up with virtue and our eternal well-being, then it requires work, much as the romantic life does.
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Ministers of the Ecclesiae Mediae
September 2021The public square is not naked but clothed by the “woke” ideology of our bourgeois liberal elites. It has its own "church" that pronounces on orthodoxy and heresy.
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Conservatism at the Crossroads
June 2021The American founders followed Plato and Aristotle in acknowledging man’s inclination to consolidate power, indulge his passions, and oppress his fellowman.
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Should Christians Pay Reparations for Racial Injustices?
April 2021The Church can engage in the work of racial reparations, but only while placing the project within a broader moral framework.
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A Manifesto for 2021
January-February 2021As always, when contemplating the political order, we should keep in mind the psalmist’s exhortation: “Put not your trust in princes.”
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A Davidic Similitude in Pre-Revolutionary China
November 2020All of us, regardless of our wealth or circumstances, are presented with choices that lead either to our happiness or to our ruin.
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The Catholic Church in the Crosshairs
September 2020It is a cruel irony that, in less than a century, Catholics have gone from being victimized as unwelcome immigrants to being widely perceived as racist victimizers.
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Sympathy for the Priest
June 2020Honest, humble, Christ-like priests serve on the front lines of a multi-millennia war against evil, defiantly waving the banner of Christ.
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Sign-Stealing of the Times
April 2020The Astros' systematic cheating vitiated the sanctity not only of the game of baseball but a core feature of American identity.
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Overcoming the Evils of Ecclesial Division
January-February 2020The robust friendship of 20th-century Swiss theologians Karl Barth and Hans Urs von Balthasar offers a different approach to ecumenical dialogue.
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In Bureaucracy’s Grip
November 2019Our friends are being squeezed by the vise of Islamic extremism and by the incomprehensible, inescapable grip of U.S. federal bureaucracy.
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All Catholics Should Major in Double E
September 2019The Eucharist without the episcopacy is invalid. The episcopacy without the Eucharist is more or less useless. The two are mutually reinforcing.
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A Tree Grows in St. Louis
June 2019A remarkable family and their little spiritual oasis in the Gateway to the West have become, as divine fate would have it, a gateway to Catholicism.
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Judaism’s Nonlinear History of Monotheism
April 2019The historical moment when Judaism seemed most alive, its pieties and devotions most ubiquitous, was the moment God required an expanded understanding and vision of His nature.
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Learning the Meaning of Longsuffering
January-February 2019We all suffer together, we members of the mystical body of Christ. Our every act of virtue contributes to the glory of Christ’s Church.
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The Strange Magnetism of Virtual Fisticuffs
November 2018What happens when a fairly obscure writer picks a fight with a Christian YouTube celebrity who has over 200,000 followers?
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Humanae Vitae: A Manual for Better Sex?
October 2018Much popular Catholic literature on NFP is utilitarian, claiming that obeying Church teaching results in a happier, more exciting bedroom experience.
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Antidote to the Ideologization of Children’s Literature
When a storyteller has a true love and respect for his young audience, it is evident, and any imparted moral lessons are carefully and charitably communicated.
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