Vatican II’s “Religious Liberty” Revisited

Today, threats to religious liberty in the United States are very much in the news. The most striking example is the Supreme Court’s recent decision in June 2020 that the LGBT community must be granted civil rights status in employment m … [Read more...]

Book Reviews – February 2020

Habits for a Healthy Marriage: A Handbook for Catholic Couples By Richard P. Fitzgibbons. Reviewed by Christopher Siuzdak. (skip to review) Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination By John Corvino, Ryan Anderson, and Sherif … [Read more...]

Autumn Book Reviews

Behold the Man: A Catholic Vision of Male Spirituality by Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2015), xi + 279 pp. Reviewed by Dr. Joshua M. Evans. Catholics and Protestants: What Can We Learn from Each Other? … [Read more...]

From Street to Sanctuary: The LGBT Take On the Church

The “Lesbian-Gay-Bi-Trans” movement (hereafter, LGBT) has largely succeeded in becoming fully accepted into the secular society worldwide. Now it’s clear that this movement—composed of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and the trans-gendered—is sett … [Read more...]

Questions Answered

Question: On the fiftieth anniversary of Vatican II, what are the positive and negative results of this Council? Answer: The Second Vatican Council is the watershed event of the Catholic Church in the 20th Century. Though 50 years have … [Read more...]

To Whom Shall We Go?

(“To whom shall we go?” John 6: 66-69)[1. “As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him. Jesus then said to the Twelve, ‘Do you also want to leave?’ Simeon Peter answered him, … [Read more...]

Does Religion Have An Essential Place in Political Society?

It is often said that religion should be a private affair. I have been told this while I was still working. It shows a distinct ignorance of the basis of religion itself. Religion is not meant to be private. It never was. Christianity, … [Read more...]

Religious Freedom, Slavery, and Usury

Three Challenges to the Hermeneutic of Continuity

Early on in his pontificate, Benedict XVI laid down the challenge of reading the Church’s teaching according to a hermeneutic of continuity, rather than according to what he characterized as a hermeneutic of rupture.[1. Benedict XVI, A … [Read more...]

What Is the Right to Religious Freedom?

The most fundamental right in the area of religion is that which should be attributed to God, what we owe to God. God is absolutely sovereign.   Catholics of the United States are more than ever asserting a right to religious freedom, … [Read more...]

Rallying for Religious Freedom under the Shadow of Planned Parenthood

Our Founding Fathers understood that when the state oversteps its boundaries—offending its very charge and offending the rights of the people—we must stand up. We stand today in a shadow cast by this massive Planned Parenthood facility, w … [Read more...]

Making sense of another ambiguous “compromise”

Bishop's Corner The scholar, Yuval Levin, has stressed that the new HHS mandate proposal, “like the versions that have preceded it, betrays a complete lack of understanding of both religious liberty and religious conscience.” To live w … [Read more...]

Legislation creating ”same-sex” marriage: What’s at stake?

Bishop's Corner

Marriage comes to us from nature ... neither Church nor State invented marriage, and neither can change its nature.  At the beginning of the New Year, 2013, a law is being proposed in the General Assembly to change the legal definition … [Read more...]

The Pastoral Mandate, Politicians and Religious Liberty

Is this threat to religious liberty a political problem, or is it a pastoral problem? ... With the 2012 election nearing, it is a time ... to have a serious discussion about the relationship between the bishops’ pastoral practices and the po … [Read more...]