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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
On Not Being Paralyzed by History
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TRIGGER WARNING: The next few sentences will upset some of you. There is a case to be made that the United States lost the Vietnam War—or, at the very least,
What Ukraine Means
On February 24, 2022, something considered so unlikely in the twenty-first century as to be almost unimaginable happened: A large European state mounted a full-scale, full-spectrum invasion of another large
Pacem In Terris after 60 Years
On April 11, 1963, John XXIII issued the encyclical Pacem in Terris, a powerful call for a world in which there were neither victims nor executioners that cemented the pontiff’s reputation
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