The American pope: What does the election of Pope Leo XIV mean?

The Roman Catholic Church has a new pope, and it didn’t take the papal conclave long to make it happen. On the fourth ballot, taken in the grandeur of...

June 9, 2025

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The Dutch Turn Down the European Union Constitution–By a Landslide

Just days after the French people stunned the world by rejecting the proposed European Union Constitution and humiliating the Chirac government, Dutch voters turned the constitution down in a landslide vote. At least 61 percent of Dutch voters reject ...

June 2, 2005

Among the Unbelievers–Atheists and ‘Universists’

In today's commentary I look at George Weigel's book, The Cube and the Cathedral, that laments and analyzes Europe's descent into secularism. America is different, of course, at least for now. At present, some of our more colorful rejectionists are a ...

June 1, 2005

Then Again, Maybe Not–The French Say No to the European Constitution

French voters handed French President Jacques Chirac a devastating political defeat on Saturday, and their rejection of the proposed European constitution could spell the end of the vision for a European superstate. Chirac and his government have bee ...

May 31, 2005

Sex Amidst the Ruins

When a civilization gives itself over to moral confusion, sex and love are the most obvious laboratories of experimentation--and thus, of controversy. Consider the following: ITEM ONE: Transgenderism Considered on "Larry King Live" Larry King intervi ...

May 30, 2005

James McPherson Worries About History Without Letters

Yesterday, historian James McPherson was interviewed on NPR's "Weekend Edition, Sunday" program about why soldiers fight. His book, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War, is a classic model of using primary sources to revisit histor ...

May 30, 2005

Liberty’s Defenders–A Memorial Day Observation

My Memorial Day commentary for Beyond the News: "Cover them with beautiful flowers, deck them with garlands these brothers of ours, lying so silent by night and by day." Those were the words of poet Will Carleton speaking of the Civil War dead.Memori ...

May 30, 2005

Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity

As you prepare for worship this Lord's Day, remember that all true Christian worship is Trinitarian in shape and substance. Consider these words from Gregory of Nazianzus, [330-394 A.D.]: "No sooner do I conceive of the one than I am illuminated by t ...

May 29, 2005

Bad News for Boys–An Environmental Cause?

Sociobiologists and anthropologists have warned that the human male might not survive--and some feminists hope for such a development. Now, scientists in the United States have found that exposure to some common chemicals can harm the development of ...

May 28, 2005

This and That . . . Not to Be Missed

ITEM ONE: John M. Swomley, Professor Emeritus of Christian Social Ethics at the St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, is worried that Justice Antonin Scalia might be nominated as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.  Writing in Christian Et ...

May 27, 2005

President Bush’s Stem Cell Theology

The New York Times editorialized on the stem cell issue again, charging President Bush with pushing a theological agenda. In "The President's Stem Cell Theology," the paper charged that the President's policy on human embryonic stem cell research is ...

May 27, 2005