Spirit & Life Blog
“The family, a natural society, exists prior to the State or any other community, and possesses inherent rights which are inalienable.” ― Charter of the Rights of the Family Societies once almost universally respected the family and the rights of parents to raise and educate their children, recognizing the family’s unique role as the essential…
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Noland Arbaugh was paralyzed from the neck down in his early twenties after a diving accident. He is now twenty-nine years old and a quadriplegic. Recently, however, several videos of him playing video games went viral. The reason for the widespread interest in Arbaugh’s video gaming is not his prowess with the games. What’s astonishing…
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A few days ago, the Wall Street Journal ran a feature-length article with the headline, “Suddenly There Aren’t Enough Babies. The Whole World Is Alarmed.” The article is just one more piece of evidence of the massive shift in public discourse that I have noted in several recent columns, i.e. that after decades of overpopulation…
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“God’s parental tenderness can also be expressed by the image of motherhood (Isaiah 66:13; Psalm 131:2), which emphasizes God’s immanence, the intimacy between Creator and creature. The language of faith thus draws on the human experience of parents.” ― Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 239 Christians typically speak of God as our “Father.”…
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Warning: This column includes some descriptions of a mature and disturbing nature. Reader discretion is advised. Recently, a woman by the name of Kitty published a book about a year during which she decided to experiment with casual sex. Her self-stated purpose was to shake off a deep aversion she had felt towards sex ever…
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The 2006 film Children of Men, based upon a novel of the same name, imagines a world in which the entire human race has suffered from infertility for over two decades. The result is a civilization utterly bereft of babies and children, and in which the youngest human is over twenty years old. The overarching…
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“From the very beginning, the Church has known how to accompany the dying. How many priests and religious men and women have spent hours with persons who were at the end of life? At the end of their earthly journey, men do not need a cold, death-dealing syringe. They need a compassionate, loving hand.” Cardinal…
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Anybody who has taken the time to read some of the great literature of pagan times will quickly be struck by something: while many of the ancient, pagan authors do seem to have a strong sense of moral purpose, nevertheless, human life is often treated astonishingly cheaply. As one reads The Iliad and the Odyssey,…
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A child is not something owed to one but is a gift. The “supreme gift of marriage” is a human person. A child may not be considered a piece of property, an idea to which an alleged “right to a child” would lead. In this area, only the child possesses genuine rights: the right “to…
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Turning Pride Month on Its Head: Fidelity Month
“Only in the mystery of Christ’s Redemption do we discover the ‘concrete’ possibilities of man. It would be a very serious error to conclude . . . that the Church’s teaching is essentially only an ‘ideal.’ . . . Christ has redeemed us! This means that he has given us the possibility of realizing the…
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