Spirit & Life Blog

One step forward, two steps back. That’s how the culture wars sometimes feel these days. Last week I was pleased to write about a Supreme Court decision that protected the right of a Catholic adoption agency to abide by Catholic beliefs in only adopting children into families with a mother and a father. This week,…

In recent years, it is all too rare that pro-family activists have won any significant victories. From the passage of civil union laws, to the legalization of same-sex “marriage,” and now the rapid spread of an extreme and coercive form of gender ideology, it seems that we have been losing one major battle after another.…

During a year when one of the most pro-abortion presidential administrations in history is pushing abortion every chance that it gets, it can be strangely comforting to read abortion-related news coming from pro-abortion organizations in the country. Take, for instance, the Guttmacher Institute, one of the most powerful and extreme pro-abortion agencies on the planet.…

For Catholics, June is the month of the Sacred Heart, in which we recall and celebrate Christ’s redeeming, self-sacrificial love for us. For the world, however, June is now Pride Month – a month-long hedonistic carnival in celebration of a debased concept of “love”: one that in many cases reduces love to nothing more than…

“Marriage and conjugal love are by their nature ordained toward the begetting and educating of children. Children are really the supreme gift of marriage and contribute very substantially to the welfare of their parents.” ─ Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, no. 50 Politically speaking, the United States and…

“Every child who a woman expects in her womb is a gift that changes a family’s history: the life of fathers and mothers, grandparents and of brothers and sisters. That child needs to be welcomed, loved and nurtured. Always!” ─ Pope Francis, World Down Syndrome Day 2021 In 2014, the famous scientist and militant atheist…

Is the tyranny of Roe v. Wade in the United States about to fall? For the first time in years, pro-lifers have serious reason to hope that the aim towards which they have worked for so many decades – the end of Roe v. Wade – will finally come about, and as soon as next…

“In the proclamation of this Gospel, we must not fear hostility or unpopularity, and we must refuse any compromise or ambiguity which might conform us to the world’s way of thinking (cf. Rom 12:2). We must be in the world but not of the world (cf. Jn 15:19; 17:16), drawing our strength from Christ, who…

The drumbeat of bad news coming from the Biden administration can certainly be discouraging for pro-life and pro-family activists. It seems that hardly a week passes without some horrific new announcement from the administration, pushing abortion or some other assault on basic moral truths. However, as I have emphasized so often in the past, it’s…

“Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.” ─ Pope St. Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, no. 41 Throughout his pontificate, Pope Francis has repeatedly warned against the temptation to make the Church into just another non-profit organization. The Church, he…