Jesus, born in a barn amongst the heaving, dank breath of livestock, raised poor in a bad town (Can anything good come out of Nazareth? John 1:46), who unjudgmentally lent a shoulder to corrupt tax collectors, the poor dregs of society, and adulterous women (pointing out... Read More →

  Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman’s new book What Are Children For? On Ambivalence and Choice is an eye-opening study of the contemporary mindset that regards children today as at best useful goods and at worst positive bads. Published before the controversy over J.D.... Read More →

  What should I say to a young woman who enters my classroom wearing a t-shirt that reads: “I am a Proud Member of the Pro-choice Generation”? Perhaps my response should be relegated to the realm of the imagination, which neither offends nor upsets. Furthermore, I owe it to my... Read More →

  Shortly after the recent US presidential election, “your body, my choice” began trending up in online discourse. The sentiment is vile. Those who repeat it, or post memes emblazoned with the phrase, do so to threaten women. The meaning of the four-word taunt is clear: “I... Read More →

  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... Read More →

  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.”... Read More →

  [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... Read More →

  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... Read More →

  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... Read More →

  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... Read More →

  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... Read More →

  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... Read More →

  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... Read More →

  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.... Read More →

  Given that 81-year-old Democrat Joe Biden has taken himself out of the US presidential race, attention over the age issue has turned more sharply towards 78-year-old Republican Donald Trump. At that age he is somewhat older than an earlier presidential candidate for... Read More →

  In the hopeful spring of 1990, soon after the Berlin Wall had fallen and as freedom-seeking crowds of Eastern Europeans were kicking in the rotten doors of a crumbling Soviet empire, one of the great figures of the dawning decade stood by the Washington Monument looking... Read More →

  Abortion and euthanasia are two of the most scorched-over debate battlefields in the West. Positions for and against tend to stalemate because questions about life and death are often seen as absolute. When does life begin? When does it end? Answers to these can help... Read More →

  In a recent blog post entitled “Incrementalism is a Losing Strategy”, pro-life activist Bernadette Patel takes a pessimistic view of the current political climate. She particularly criticizes the strategy of passing imperfect laws like 15-week bans. Her... Read More →

  The preposterous idea that someone too senile to be a candidate is none-the-less fit to serve as president (have your 25th Amendment and eat it too) is a building block in the Democratic Party’s new Lego–like creation—an American electoral system engineered to fit their... Read More →

    In this seaside community in Beautiful British Columbia (as their license plates proclaim) where my mother- and father-in-law retired, seventy-five steel steps separate the trail where the staircase begins and the beach that lies below at the foot of a steep... Read More →

  Not long ago I was inundated with pro-life friends lamenting the Supreme Court abortion pill ruling. All I could say was “They didn’t have a strong case.” Besides their lack of standing, I didn’t understand why doctors who never prescribed the pills had brought the lawsuit... Read More →

  In July, Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio met with some 130 plaintiffs and other related parties involved in several lawsuits against the Japanese government. The plaintiffs are seeking damages for forced sterilization operations carried out under the Eugenics... Read More →

  In the ’80s a tiny article tucked away in the corner of my morning newspaper caught my eye and my imagination. It was about how scientists were experimenting with taking eggs from two separate cows, combining them in a petri dish and then, using a process that would leave the... Read More →

  “Tuesday” is the title of a recent indie film (still in theaters) and the name of its main character. The unusual name recalls the day that can seem empty—lacking the energy of Monday and the celebratory release of Friday—while silently pregnant with all the stressors of... Read More →

  Readers can quickly recall what happened in recent years on January 6 (2021), and October 7 (2023). But historically? Historically, these dates are also very significant—one for the United States, the other for Europe—but unfortunately not often remembered.  On January 6,... Read More →

  When the Vatican announced last month that Pope Francis would be the first Roman pontiff to address the G7 Summit—a meeting of the world’s leading national economic powers—I considered it a unique opportunity for the voice of the Church to be heard in the hearts, minds,... Read More →

  I have a cousin who was born with a severe mental handicap and has been institutionalized since infancy. At the end of June, my cousin—let’s call him Toby—turned fifty. I don’t think any physician who examined him expected him to live to ten let alone all these years.... Read More →

  “The Portal” is an art installation in a plaza next to the Flatiron Building in New York. It’s connected to another one in Dublin on O’Connell Street, the Irish capital’s main thoroughfare. Each one has a big round screen and a video camera so people in both cities can... Read More →

    [Correction: An earlier version of this piece misidentified the imprisoned prolifers discussed in it as members of Operation Rescue. While they participated in what is referred to in the pro-life community as a “rescue,” they are not affiliated with that... Read More →

  Hollywood’s Golden Age is generally defined as the period between the advent of the “talkies” (with The Jazz Singer in 1927) and the early-to-mid 1960s, when the major studios were producing historical epics, hallucinogenic musicals, and other big-budget extravaganzas that... Read More →

  When I first learned about the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision in grade school it seemed to me to be eminently just. School segregation had been manifestly wrong, an affront to human dignity. Underlying the “separate but equal” paradigm that held... Read More →

  “We are going to build a wall and Mexico is going to pay for it!” he bellowed in 2016, descending the elevators at Trump Plaza. Immediately, I hated him. Growing up in a feminist, leftist, pro-choice family, we all collectively agreed that “Trump means bad.” Even his own... Read More →

  False advertising is nothing new. From hyperactive snake oil salesmen pitching toxic “health” tonics from the back of horse-drawn wagons to modern day “melt away the fat” diet scams on the internet, for as long as there has been something to sell, there have been deceitful... Read More →

  On the rare occasions when I spend more than a minute scanning the headlines on the Real Clear Politics homepage and click on a story to learn more about the sad state of our nation, I get short flashes of unoriginal insight: “Why can’t we just do what’s right for America?... Read More →

  National news outlets are abuzz with articles about abortion in Arizona. In September 2022, state courts, working in the wake of the Dobbs decision earlier that year, lifted injunctions (put in place following the Roe decision in 1973) against laws criminalizing almost all... Read More →

  There’s a new pro-abortion placard being waved at rallies. It reads: My Mind My Choice (italics theirs). Perhaps a defensive tactic against the pro-life “winning hearts and minds” strategy (proving increasingly overly optimistic considering the apparent shortage of hearts and... Read More →

  Ahab was the seventh king of Israel. The Bible describes him as a wicked ruler. He was married to Jezebel who persuaded him to abandon Yahweh and establish the religion of Baal. So defiant was Ahab in his apostasy that he had inscribed on all the doors in the city of Samaria... Read More →

    In 2015 the United Nations adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030. These include ending poverty, empowering women, providing universal education, sustaining the environment, and several more. The 17th goal concerns partnerships: how... Read More →

  My stomach hurt as I desperately tried to think of something to say to the woman sitting in front of me: “You know you love your son so much . . . I bet he would love another sibling!” Annabelle* looked up at me, exasperated. I already knew her answer. “I just can’t... Read More →

    So, how’s your spring going? Chill, snow, nor’easter rain enough for Noah? Hope you don’t need to go to Baltimore, with the Key Bridge collapse adding to the usual disarray caused by high urban crime rates. Maybe you were among the 73 million AT&T customers whose... Read More →

  The Alabama Supreme Court’s recent decision on in vitro fertilization (IVF), LePage v. The Center for Reproductive Medicine (Feb. 16, 2024), has generated a tsunami of synthetic hysteria that has drowned the country in misinformation. Left-wing pundits and politicians,... Read More →

  The 2023 cinematic production The Zone of Interest won an Academy Award last month for Best International Feature Film. This powerful movie focuses on Schutzstaffel (SS) lieutenant colonel Rudolf Höss during his time as commandant of Auschwitz, the sprawling Nazi... Read More →

  The only thing I find even creepier than the women at abortion rights rallies whose faces are so distorted with rage they look like fugitives from a de Kooning painting are the ones who link arms and virtually dance the Irish jig because they’ve succeeded in enshrining... Read More →

  Somebody once told me that while it was good to be a ladies’ man, it was important to be a man’s man, too. That was a long time ago, and though I took his advice to heart, he had been vague about how to arrive at either state. In the intervening years, I’ve observed men... Read More →

  IMHO* Yes, I confess to learning a few texting terms to communicate with younger people at the office. But most of the time, in my capacity as vice postulator of the sainthood cause of Blessed Michael McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus, I am immersed in language... Read More →

  In late January former Planned Parenthood director Cecile Richards revealed in a New York Magazine interview that she is battling glioblastoma, an “incurable brain cancer for which the median survival rate is 15 months.” On reading the news I immediately began praying for... Read More →

  A visually arresting film with an engaging narrative, Cabrini should come with a friendly warning, or perhaps a guarantee: You will be captivated, heart and soul, by this depiction of the life of one of the most significant women of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.... Read More →

  Since Dobbs was handed down a veritable cottage industry in pro-abortion books has emerged, especially among academic presses, the intellectual gatekeepers concerning what’s considered important scholarship. I remember both Rutgers University Press and the University of... Read More →

  Long-term relationships, be they with family or friends, carry a lot of history. Obviously, most of it is pleasant or the bond would be severed at some point. But there’s also a trail of disappointments and betrayals, which, as long as they are relatively minor in nature,... Read More →

  Why should pro-life people care about singer/sex symbol Britney Spears? Sure, her memoir The Woman in Me sold 2.4 million copies last fall in its first week of release. Sure, Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and she placed first in a poll... Read More →

  I’ve noticed that everyone who is against genocide has already been born. This paraphrase recalls Ronald Reagan’s well-known line, “I’ve noticed that everyone that is for abortion has already been born.” The sentiment is similar. Children in the womb don’t have a say in... Read More →

              Meet Your Maker  Sitting on the local waiting in the station then running and shouting. A voice yells everybody down! We obey without question. How strange to be in a group all faced in the same direction the voice pulling us like gravity first to bent knee... Read More →

  The March for Life never disappoints. No matter the state of the union, the status of legislation at the federal and state level, or the twisted rhetoric of Planned Parenthood and the mainstream media, there is no denying the joyful, dauntless witness of tens of thousands... Read More →

  Combing through the entries of the first race at Aqueduct one Sunday, I lighted on the name of a colt making his second start, an impressive one as it turned out. San Pantaleo shot out of the gate as if he’d been fired from a cannon and won the race going away. It pains me... Read More →

  So, without sharing graphic details, let’s just say that the recently celebrated Christmas season did not unfold in my family circle like a Hallmark movie. This, despite not only my prayers but my rather beside-the-point “practical” attempts to incarnate in our midst the... Read More →

  2024 is the year of the dragon. It was barely half-a-day old when the dragon lashed out in anger. On the afternoon of New Year’s Day in Japan our cell phones started bleating in unison, high-pitched whooping interspersed with an urgent robotic voice repeating: “Jishin... Read More →

  The current Supreme Court is pilloried for being Right Wing simply because a majority of justices are originalists who believe the Constitution should be interpreted strictly according to how it would have been understood by the framers. Labeling such a proclivity as Right... Read More →

  Looking for something to feel thankful for in this traditional season of joy? The whole world seems to be abrew with grievance, vengeance, and crazy racial baiting; the “never again” regarding our Jewish brothers and sisters has been cast aside along with the “Hate Has No... Read More →

  Once upon a time, in a prosperous country, many women decided that nurturing the next generation should not necessarily be their primary vocation. They offered a variety of serious reasons. They wanted to be appreciated as individuals. They had gifts and skills that should... Read More →

  Some earlier historians of China tell us that Qin Shihuangdi, the first Chinese emperor, was a thunderous tyrant. His word was law, and his mood was survival or extermination for those under his sway. A tale often told about Qin Shihuangdi is that he ordered the... Read More →

  Not exactly the John Wayne of the pro-life movement, but something akin to it, Chris Slattery was always easy to spot. A big man sporting a cowboy hat and boots, he was a familiar presence at pro-life events and gatherings, an indisputable movement leader, though at times... Read More →

  We savvy New York City first graders knew something was up. Sister Elaine, the fun nun, looked worried, and her mouth, usually wide in smile, was taut. We sensed a big, sore secret inside that she couldn’t let out, as much as she wanted to tell us. It was well after lunch,... Read More →

  After the successful overturn of the national abortion mandate known as Roe v. Wade, the next battle for prolifers is “winning hearts and minds.” The problem is when it comes to hearts and minds someone else got there first.  Or something. The unhinged behavior coming from... Read More →

  “Never again,” the world long repeated. The immolation of Jewry in the Shoah shall never again darken the name of humanity, we proclaimed . . . for decades. The word “genocide” was coined after the Holocaust to name the attempt to eradicate an entire group of human beings.... Read More →

  When I was a little boy in Rochester, my Uncle Vin would often relieve my young stressed-out mother and take me with him on the 25-mile drive to pick up Aunt Florrie, his wife, from her job at the Finger Lakes Racetrack. Before I could read, this guy was showing me how to... Read More →

  Sigmund Freud said there’s “a primary sexual drive that would not be ultimately curbed by law, education or standards of decorum.” Hell, anybody who’s ever had an “eyes across the room” moment knows that! The Beatles sang about it: My heart went Boom when I crossed that... Read More →

  “I am God’s wheat, and I shall be ground by the teeth of beasts, that I may become the pure bread of Christ.” Today, Oct. 17, the Church remembers a first-century bishop who set a standard for Christian courage in the face of death. St. Ignatius of Antioch, friend of St.... Read More →

A MONTH AHEAD OF ELECTIONS …. By the time you read this, November elections will be less than a month away.  A year ahead of presidential elections, 2023 may not attract the attention elections usually do.  But failing to pay attention to them would be a fatal mistake for... Read More →

  As summer ended, news came of several prolifers having been convicted in federal court. Their “crime” was violating the 1994 FACE Act; specifically, what they did was carry out a rescue. Three years ago, the prolifers disrupted the “business” of a notorious Washington, DC... Read More →

  Based on the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the classic science fiction movie Blade Runner features robots so life-like they’re indistinguishable from human beings. Machines Like Me, a more recent work by Ian McEwan, confronts the same... Read More →

  The expression “not worth a tinker’s dam” means something is completely worthless. A tinker was an itinerant handyman who repaired small household items like utensils and pots and pans. A tinker’s dam was a piece of doughy material used to hold metal in place when... Read More →

  Grief and relief. Depression and elation. These are some of the back-and-forth feelings I’ve been experiencing since my wife and I dropped off our younger son at college last month. We are now empty nesters—at least until Thanksgiving. It’s been a long time sin... Read More →

  On August 29, my friend Will Goodman and four other defendants were convicted (and immediately jailed) in federal court in Washington, D.C., of violating the FACE Act. Their alleged offenses occurred on October 22, 2020, when the group disrupted a late-term-abortion mill... Read More →

  Despite being brought up by generous, loving people, I never felt at home in the suburban tract house where I misspent my youth. My dad was a slick-talking charmer who hadn’t energy for much beyond drinking, gambling, and chasing women, though he was, in his way, generous... Read More →

  American pro-life attention since June 2022 has focused on the legal status of abortion in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision, removing Roe v. Wade’s straitjacket on states that wanted to protect prenatal life. Fewer people know that during the same period, a similar... Read More →

  In Lawyer-Land, if you shoplift but the surveillance cameras are busted and you get out of the store without the alarm going off, you’re innocent. No evidence, no crime. It doesn’t matter what is true or false, it only matters what can be proven in court. It’s the... Read More →

  It is sultry summer in Japan. There are fireworks displays in the night sky as I walk home from work, distant orbs of shattering ochre and turquoise exploding in the distance followed by a dull thud. In nearby parks and schoolyards, I hear the taut rhythms of taik... Read More →

  Now that it’s over, I can ask, “How was your July?” I have a certain affection for the month due to the fireworks at the beginning and my birthday near the end. But this one lacked the usual oomph! A pervasive ennui hung in the air along with the miasmic humidity that... Read More →

  Years ago, I made the acquaintance of a man who wrote on occasion. Beyond the ambition of the Big Score that busted-out writers and horse players dream of, he had none. His main occupation at that time was swilling vodka, browbeating his fellow barflies, and bemoaning what... Read More →

  Seeing the photos of “trans woman” Glenique Frank after he won a marathon in London by competing in the female category gave me a moment of clarity about the current “men in women’s sports” phenomenon. They usually try to pull off what they presume is a feminine air... Read More →

    As we mark the first anniversary of Dobbs, it’s important to prepare for this fall’s off-year elections. Roe caught pro-lifers off-guard in 1973 because, prior to that decision, abortion policy had been fought out almost exclusively at the state level. Roe suddenly... Read More →

  I had not been to visit my parents in more than four years when I finally made it back a few months ago. I was last down home in early 2019; we had said goodbye hoping to meet around the same time in 2020. A pandemic intervened. The world turned upside-down. Death.... Read More →

  There was a major freak-out when shortly after the fall of Roe Senator Lindsay Graham proposed a national ban on abortion after 15 weeks. I myself thought it was poor timing and impolitic. The pro-life stance had been about states’ rights, and the sudden change in focus... Read More →

  When my two sons were learning their catechism, I would joke that the most important of the Ten Commandments was the fourth: Honor thy father and thy mother. Some 20 years later, as I enter the Medicare phase of life, I recite for them (more seriously) the sage words of... Read More →

    June 19 is Father’s Day. It will be the first Father’s Day in nearly fifty years when states have not been constrained by Roe v. Wade (and its progeny) from protecting fathers’ rights. Few remember that the 1973 Roe decision legalizing abortion represented such a... Read More →

  If Pope Celestine V is familiar at all to us today, it’s because his name came up in 2013 during the resignation of Benedict XVI. As one of only a handful of popes who had previously abdicated, the erstwhile Peter of Morrone was perhaps the most hapless selection to the... Read More →

  A few weeks ago, I attended the world premier of “Tomo ni Ikiru: Shoka Kanazawa Shoko,” a documentary about the life and work of Kanazawa Shoko, the world’s greatest living calligrapher. The title means “Living Side by Side.” During opening remarks, the film’s director... Read More →

  My father was a master grade electrician and for a while he worked at the Ballantine brewing facility in Newark, N.J. Once, during a family car trip, he pointed it out as we passed by. I remember a huge expanse of buildings and cylindrical structures. He said an important... Read More →

  The turning point came when Pennsylvania Governor Bob Casey was denied a chance to speak at the 1992 Democratic National Convention in New York. Ordinarily, the ranking elected Democrat from such a large and important state would be a natural choice to address the... Read More →

    Though it may be known for showers, a tempest broke out in late April on social media over emails that leading retailers (including DoorDash, Kay Jewelers, Hallmark, and Levi’s) sent to customers offering them the opportunity to “opt out” of potentially “triggering”... Read More →