Pope Francis’s Strange Bedfellows
One would assume a radical pope like Francis would at least keep a few token conservatives in his entourage. On the contrary: many of his appointees are well to the Left of his own public image. Much can be gleaned about the Holy Father’s mind by studying the men he...
The Gender Confusion Challenge to Army Recruitment
One thing that you can say for ISIS, the Middle-East terrorist army, is that it doesn’t have a recruitment problem. Young men are streaming to Syria and Iraq from all over the world to join the cause. And they come not just from the Muslim world, but also from...
Pan-Amazon Pandemonium
There’s a funny scene in Oklahoma in which Curly sings a slyly mocking song about Jud Fry, the menacing hired hand. Curly assures Jud that though people dislike him now, they’ll miss him when he’s gone. To make the point, he imagines Jud’s funeral and how people will...
Islam Minus Muhammad
Ever since 9/11 there has been much talk about reforming Islam so that it can be more in step with the modern world. What would a reformed Islam look like? One doesn’t have to look far for an answer. In a sense the Islamic reformation has already come and gone. It...
Corruption in the Church: Bad News and Hopeful Possibilities
Thanks to Pope Francis, the Vatican now joins the growing list of the world’s sanctuary cities. If you’re a clergyman wanted by civil authorities or Church authorities in your native land, the Vatican will offer you a safe haven and, quite possibly, a cushy job. When...
The Amazon Synod Goes Native
Every now and then, the utopians in our midst dust off Rousseau’s Noble Savage thesis and try to convince us that life in the jungle beats life in the air-conditioned suburbs. The general idea is that people who live close to the state of nature are spiritually...
Multiculturalism: Islamic Style
“Schoolchildren banned from singing Silent Night over fears it will offend other religions.” So reads a headline in the Express. Instead of singing the lyrics which might “offend other religions,” schoolchildren in Bresciano, Italy were told to hum the tune. If you...
Infiltration: Real or Imagined?
Has the Catholic Church been infiltrated by anti-Catholic forces intent on its destruction? This is the thesis of Taylor Marshall’s new book, Infiltration: The Plot to Destroy the Church from Within. The book has already generated a lot of controversy,...
Beware of Muslim Bearing Pamphlets
“True Islam is a religion that wholly rejects all forms of terrorism.” So says an online pamphlet put out by the True Islam Campaign. The pamphlet lists ten other truths about “true Islam,” including “True Islam believes in the equality, education, and empowerment of...
The New Primitives
When a man ceases to believe in God, observed Chesterton, he becomes capable of believing in anything. It looks like we may now have reached the “anything” stage of human history. As faith in Christianity recedes in the West, a strange thing is happening. Having...
