A Catholic Vote Does Exist

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Mark Stricherz

A Catholic Vote Does Exist

My colleague Jody Bottum argues that despite the recent national attention, a Catholic vote does not really exist. Catholic voters follow the same pattern as those of other faiths: the more religiou... More

Catholic Parishes and the Marriage Crisis

I am late to this, but Hilary Towers and Michael McManus wrote an innovative and genuinely counter-revolutionary op-ed last month. Their article was not about abortion, the HHS mandate, or President O... More

Scapegoating a Bishop

It’s one thing to disagree with the Church’s judgment on prudential matters. It’s another to suggest that a Catholic bishop is an ill-informed political pawn. Former Bush speechwriter Marc Thies... More

Do the Ryan Plan’s Tax Cuts Pass the Moral Test?

In case you missed the news, the Catholic Bishops criticized the House Republican’s budget plan for its proposed cuts to programs that serve the poor and vulnerable. It urged Republican House leader... More

Romney, the Child-Tax Credit, and Social Conservatives

In his column this week, E.J. Dionne said conservatives prioritize market imperatives over family imperatives, suggesting that they have contributed to the major decrease in the share of children wh... More

On Social Issues, Santorum Could Have Learned from Bush

As Ramesh Ponnuru noted, Rick Santorum’s brand of social conservatism suffered from too many defects to win a Republican presidential nomination, let alone a general election. His tone was abrasiv... More

Pro-Life Activists and the Politics of Resentment

[caption id="attachment_28621" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Christopher Lasch"][/caption] Pro-lifers like to think the best of activists who protest in front of abortion clinics. But acti... More

Our Civic Duty and JFK’s 1960 Speech

As Kathryn notes, Archbishop Dolan believes that John F. Kennedy endorsed the opinion that one’s Catholic faith should not inspire one’s decisions. The good archbishop is not alone in this view, a... More

The Wire, The Great Gatsby, & Human Character

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1M2AUYYKfxk Over at his New York Times blog, Ross Douthat argues that “The Wire” did not portray human character as well as “The Sopranos”: How much charac... More

A White-Collar Church and Its Discontents

In response to my latest defense of the Baltimore Catechism, reader bpeters1 argues that reverting to the catechism would turn back the clock to a less enlightened age. Excerpt: Do we really want t... More