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  During the last presidential campaign, friends and acquaintances urged me to cast my vote for the Republican Party platform. I didn’t, because it wasn’t on the ballot. I wasn’t always so clear-eyed. In 1980, being young and both bloodless and woolly in my political... Read More →

  One of the doves who come to our window feeder seems to be missing the skin on the back of his head. I’m pretty sure we see his skull when he looks away from the house. It’s a dangerous world out there when you’re prey. They’re pretty birds, our doves, but they don’t look... Read More →

  On the first Saturday of every month, about forty of us gather outside Planned Parenthood on Bleecker Street in downtown Manhattan for an early morning Vigil for Life. We have been holding this vigil for almost ten years and neither wind nor rain nor blazing sun... Read More →

I always knew it was going to happen. I just didn’t know when—or for whom. My 11-year-old daughter, Magdalena, has Down syndrome. Over the years, my wife and I have met dozens of other parents of children with special needs—through schools, through Special Olympics programs,... Read More →

The story of Mary Magdalene, a repentant sinner who went on to sainthood, is well known. Today she serves as inspiration for two life-affirming organizations: The Community of St. Mary Magdalene and The Magdalene Institute. Their founder, Mary Langlois, hopes that the... Read More →

  According to the Centers for Disease Control, more people in Massachusetts die annually from suicide than from motor vehicle accidents (National Vital Statistics Reports, April 24, 2008). In 2007, the state’s suicide rate (8.0 per 100,000 people) was almost three times... Read More →

  Neil Gorsuch’s probable ascension to the Supreme Court nicely conforms to a script that pro-life advocates hopeful of seeing Roe v. Wade overturned have been writing in their minds for the past year: Elect a Republican president, who soon fills Scalia’s seat with a pro-life... Read More →

  What is the pro-life movement about? Oddly, it is this question that is most contested. If pro-choice people agreed with us as to the purpose of the pro-life movement, we might actually get somewhere. This was brought home to me recently at a conversation-with-cookies... Read More →

  He shocked his friends, and lost a good many of them. He said something no one in his circles would say. In doing so, he exposed one of the weirder and sadder failures in modern American political life. Nat Hentoff was one of the really cool guys. He wrote for the New York... Read More →

  It is clear that Donald Trump will keep tweeting after he is sworn into office as President. His Twitter site now claims to have over 20 million followers. What politician would give up such a goldmine of support? Especially when media reporters follow it closely? If Trump... Read More →