The Eyes of Faith

  A New York funeral Mass celebrated by a Catholic bishop and a trio of nationally known priests would seem to indicate that the person being mourned was famous or perhaps a major church donor. Yet the deceased who drew such notable clergy, as well as lay leaders of the...
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GEN C (clusters of cells)

  The Greatest Generation (b. 1901 to 1927) earned its name for fighting WWII. The Silent Generation (b. 1928 to 1945)—aka the Traditionalist Generation—produced the “Silent Majority,” who refrained from publicly expressing their thoughts on “sex, religion, and politics.”...
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Piety and Laughter—J.P. McFadden

  [The Human Life Foundation will celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Human Life Review at its annual Great Defender of Life Dinner on November 13. The following appreciation is reprinted here in memory of our founding editor James P. McFadden, a widely known and admired...
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If Babies Could Vote

  For the first time in my life a presidential campaign has come and gone without substantive discussion about the moral fabric of America. Roe v. Wade was an abhorrent Supreme Court decision, but it did have one positive aspect—it loomed in the background of national...
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Who Mediates the Mediators?

  A baby, propped up in a stroller, is touching buttons on an iPhone or some cruder gaming device. Wearing candy-colored eyeglasses that look like a prize in a Cracker Jack box, the baby gazes contentedly at the screen. Stationed at the handles and absently steering along...
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Why Think Witches?

  Telekinesis is described as the ability to move inanimate objects at will. Proving it in a laboratory setting is problematic. People who claim they have the ability usually can’t say how they do it and have difficulty managing it, which means it can’t be reliably...
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Scrolling Along, Alone

  The cultural and media critic Neil Postman (1931-2003) was a 20th-century prophet. His seminal work Amusing Ourselves to Death, published in 1985, may seem a bit quaint today in its railing against the evil effects of television on reading, culture, and the very shape and...
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Social Security’s People Crisis

  Writing in the September 1 New York Times about the financial woes of Social Security, C. Eugene Steuerle and Glenn Kramon insist “Young Americans Can’t Keep Funding Boomers and Beyond.” The gist of their argument is that given the pay-as-you-go financing mechanism of...
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Life Ends Slowly

  Last month, I looked to an ancient Asian religion, Jainism, for help in rethinking the debates in the West over when life begins. Jains believe that human beings are embodied jivas, or sentience-imbued—and bequeathing—life forces. I suggested we might take a cue from them...
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The Chaste Man’s Casting Couch

  The “casting couch” is code for men in positions of authority in Hollywood and on Broadway using their power to extract sex from aspiring actresses in exchange for acting roles. Call it rape with a bow on it. Psychobabblers tell us rape is about power, not sex. Bullocks....
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