When Docs Play Deities
With the God of the Bible having largely disappeared from public consciousness in Great Britain, the closest thing to a replacement deity is the British National Health Service. Created after
In Support of Jimmy Lai
As chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, John Lee is the principal enforcer of the Chinese communist regime’s ever-tightening chokehold on his city’s liberties. Earlier this month,
The Grave Sin of Jew Hatred
Shortly after the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea, I noted in this column and elsewhere that the entire episode—including the fouling of the public space by the aggressor’s genocidal threats
India, China, and the Future
The September 2 issue of The Spectator featured a cartoon of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak riding an ascending rocket. Inside, the lead article—a preview of
Solidarity with a Martyr-Church
Ever since the 1596 Union of Brest re-established full communion between the Bishop of Rome and several ecclesiastical jurisdictions in Eastern Europe, what we know today as the Ukrainian Greek
True and False Reconciliation
In early July, Vladimir Putin toured an Orthodox church in St. Petersburg, piously crossed himself, and lit a candle. Hours before, Russian missiles had attacked the Ukrainian port city of
The Vatican’s China Deal Unravels Further
The latest self-inflicted blow to the Vatican’s China policy came in mid-July, when the Holy See announced that Pope Francis had “recognized” Bishop Joseph Shen Bin as Bishop of Shanghai—despite
Just War, Just Peace, and Ukraine
Carl von Clausewitz, the nineteenth-century Prussian military theorist whose masterpiece, On War, is still studied today, is not typically regarded as an intellectual resource for moral philosophers and moral theologians. That’s
From Westerplatte to Lisbon… and Everywhere Else
Westerplatte, a narrow peninsula framing the Bay of Gdańsk, was the scene of one of the first battles of World War II in Europe. On September 1, 1939, the German
Looking for the Lord Jesus in Lisbon
In mid-May, I spent two intense days in Lisbon, where a new Portuguese edition of my Letters to a Young Catholic was being prepared as a catechetical resource for World Youth Day
The Vatican as Peacemaker in Ukraine?
A few days after Cardinal Matteo Zuppi’s appointment as head of a Vatican “peace mission” to “help ease tensions in the conflict in Ukraine” (as Vatican News put it), a startling picture
John Paul II’s Centesimus Annus and Today’s Debates
In a recent article on the social doctrine of John Paul II in the Jesuit journal La Civiltà Cattolica, Fr. Fernando de la Iglesia Viguiristi, S.J., had this to say about one
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