The Secret of Life Is in the Torah

  In the book of Leviticus, God calls on the Israelites to accept thoroughly, and follow willingly, the Divine blueprint for living given to Moses on Mt. Sinai (26:3 – 27:34). The Almighty commands the nation of Israel to embrace this new way of life so that they may...
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As If

  The name Hans Vaihinger is virtually unknown today, but we Americans very much live in his world. Vaihinger, a German philosopher, created a minor sensation more than a century ago with the publication in 1911 of The Philosophy of ‘As If’ (the English translation, The...
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Pride and Penance

(This is a reprint from July 8, 2024) Last week, we celebrated the 248th anniversary of our nation’s Declaration of Independence, a bold act of defiance that ultimately, after eight long years of revolutionary war, resulted in Great Britain’s recognition of the sovereignty of the...
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A Sign(ature) of Our Times

  My father had a signature to rival John Hancock’s. The “J” of his “John” was just as intricate and imposing as the well-known one on the Declaration of Independence. And the “f” in his “Caulfield” was a unique series of...
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Priorities

  Trendy people make no secret of their trendiness. They proclaim it as if it were worthy of imitation. In my reading, which is not always pleasant, I came across a sentence that rises from the very heart of trendiness: “Lifestyle always overpowers traditional morality.” It is a...
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Damned If You Don’t, Damned If You Do

  Women can’t catch a break in the sexual code department. When I was a girl in the early 60s the protocol was that it was up to us to control romantic encounters because teenage boys could not; their urge was so strong they couldn’t be expected to curb themselves, so we had...
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Anti-Natalism: Old or New?

  On the morning of Saturday, May 17, a bomb went off outside the American Reproductive Centers fertility clinic in Palm Springs, California. The bomber, a twenty-five-year-old man named Guy Edward Bartkus, was killed in the blast. Four other people were injured. News...
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How the Church Can Be the Village

  America’s twin epidemics of isolation and low birth rates intersect in the heartbreaking experience of new mothers in America. In my short time as a mom (we have two toddlers and another child on the way), I have spoken with women at libraries, pregnancy centers, churches,...
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Reflection for Pentecost

  Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them. (John 20:22-23) The scene of our Lord’s first resurrection appearance to the disciples, when all of them are together, from the Gospel of John, is sometimes called “St. John’s Pentecost.” John doesn’t give the...
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The Mystical Stock Fund of Philomena Colaianni

  On a nothing August Saturday, with little more on my mind than the afternoon races at Saratoga, I picked up a copy of the New York Post and headed home to fix myself a sandwich. Lurid crime, political scandal, questionable celebrity antics—I don’t remember what was...
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