Inside the Capitol

Many Catholics have trouble on occasion aligning themselves with the church when it takes a position on matters of public policy.

What is often under-reported, though, is that there are truly large percentages of Catholics who disagree with the bishops on the question of immigration. This is troubling not only because the bishops’ position is both principled and humane, but because it also effectively balances a number of concerns, such as border security and the importance of keeping families together.

Read more

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Labor Day statement, “Placing Work and Workers at the Center of Economic Life” declares that the cure to our current crisis is a “national economic renewal that places working people and their families at the center of economic life.”

Read more

Over the last several years, it has been my honor to participate in a number of “Reclaiming the Culture of Marriage” events that have been held throughout the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis at various Catholic parishes.

Read more

A ground-breaking study was released on June 10 that provides one of the first large-scale, random-sample, independent, peer-reviewed, published and critiqued studies ever conducted on the parenting effects of eight groups or household settings with various combinations of male and/or female parents.

Read more

“Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you are also in the body” (Hebrews 13:3).

Two weeks ago, Iran’s court of appeals upheld the six-year prison sentence of Farshid Fat’hi. His crime? Practicing Christianity.

Read more

There is an untruth circulating rather widely in the public square these days — and gaining speed. We need to derail it. The falsehood that is spreading is that somehow, because the church refuses to conform to the default position of practically everyone in contemporary society — that sexual promiscuity is the only authentic sign-post of human freedom — that she, the church, is waging a war on women.

Read more

The common attitude of many young adults — and many of their parents — today is that individuals should have absolute autonomy or “freedom” over their relationships. We’ve forgotten that “freedom” is not to do what you want but to do what you ought, and this has made us indifferent to the broader social consequences of our actions.

Read more

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld as constitutional the most controversial element of the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA): the mandate that all individuals must purchase private health insurance. The court held that the mandate was essentially a tax that Congress could compel citizens to pay.

Read more