A rash of obscene insults targeting God, Catholicism, President Trump, and African Americans took place in the spring. The guilty parties were all prominent members of the cultural elite. The good news is that the assaults on President Trump and African Americans generated considerable moral outrage. The bad news is that the Catholic League stood virtually [...]
The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a big win for religious liberty in its June 26 ruling in Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer. At issue was whether the state has a right to deny public funds to a religious entity when the disbursement is for a secular purpose. In other words, is it constitutional to treat a [...]
The lead story in this issue of Catalyst is disturbing on many fronts. The rash of incivility is bad enough, but the uneven response to these moral outrages is also a serious problem. The etiology of this phenomenon runs deep in our culture. The coarseness of our culture exploded in the 1960s and has only gotten [...]
Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, Strangers in a Strange Land (Henry Holt, 2017) "Simply put, America can't be the way it once was." (Original italic.) This is not so much a lament as it is a reality check: Catholics upset with the culture can work to change it, but they cannot expect a return to more placid [...]
When President Donald Trump met Pope Francis on May 24th in the Vatican, the media went into high gear spinning the meeting to make the president look bad. Neither man deserved to be exploited for political purposes, but both were. The media acted as if they were shrinks: they micro-analyzed one photo, choosing the one where [...]
Not too long ago it would be considered perverse to say that men have a right to use the restrooms and shower facilities reserved for women. Today, the reverse is true. Ask Lance Berkman, the former St. Louis Cardinals slugger. The St. Louis Cardinals has hosted Christian Day for nearly three decades, and this year, as [...]
Human rights legislation is quickening in the states: protections for the unborn are gaining across the nation. Similarly, there is a determined effort to secure religious liberty. Progress against child abuse in the womb is so strong in Kentucky that it may become the first state not to have a single abortion clinic. Planned Parenthood efforts [...]
The latest audit of the Catholic clergy involved in the sexual abuse of minors shows that there were two new substantiated cases made during the period of July 1, 2015 through June 30, 2016 against 52,238 priests and deacons. That comes to .004 percent of the clergy. Though the report does not mention it, we know [...]
Newspapers are expected to print news, but that was most certainly not the case on May 19 with the New York Times. It ran a story of almost 800 words on the compensation program of the New York Archdiocese for victims of sexual abuse. There was nothing new in the article: The names of the six [...]
On June 20, Pew Research Center released the findings of a new poll on President Trump's job performance. It found that 39 percent of the public approves of his performance in office, while 55 percent disapproves. But among those who attend church weekly or more the respective figures are 48 percent and 45 percent. This suggests [...]
