I have not written anything for The Catholic Thing (TCT) since late January. There were two reasons for this: my semester research leave in Rome and the death of my father, the latter of which occurred 8 days after my wife and I arrived in the Eternal City. My most recent installment over at TCT is about those first days in Rome and our abrupt return to the US upon hearing from my parents about my father’s declining health. The title,... Read more
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That’s the title of my latest essay over at The Catholic Thing. It is a response to a First Things blog post by Richard Mouw. Here’s how my piece begins: My friend, Richard Mouw, a philosopher and former president of Fuller Theological Seminary, has raised an important challenge about the use of counterexamples when making one’s case on certain controversial moral and political questions. He shares one of the arguments he employs to explain to his friends why he opposes the legal... Read more
You can read it here. I had heard of Tim Challies years ago. And I may have actually met or corresponded with him at some point in the past, but I do not recall. He seems like a nice guy, and I have no doubt that he is a devoted pastor, husband, and father. In any event, I bring his blog post to your attention, since it serves as an excellent example of a talented writer misunderstanding the Catholic view on... Read more
Northern Illinois University Press has just published Reason, Revelation, and the Civic Order: Political Philosophy and the Claims of Faith. Edited by Paul DeHart (Texas State University) and Carson Holloway (University of Nebraska, Omaha), I am proud to be one of the contributors along with Peter Augustine Lawler (Berry College), Robert C. Koons (University of Texas), J. Budziszewski (University of Texas), James Stoner, Jr. (Louisiana State University), R. J Snell (Eastern University), Ralph C. Hancock (Brigham Young University), Micah Watson (Union University),... Read more
Today is my wife Frankie’s birthday. What follows is one of the many poems I wrote to her over the years. This one in particular was penned in the mid-1980s while we were dating. It is called “Elusive Valentine.” Elusive Valentine I’m finally relaxed After two weeks of being here And my time is never taxed Whenever she is near She doesn’t wear a monogram She’s got an independent mind She admires Billy Graham She’s an elusive valentine There’s something... Read more
Last year I was invited by the Pontifical Council for Promotion of the New Evangelization to participate in an education conference in Rome on John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae. Held at the Pontificia Università Urbaniana, the keynote address was given by Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, which was followed by papers given by myself and Robert Royal (Faith & Reason Institute). A revised version of my Rome talk, entitled “On Making the Case for Life: On St. Peter’s Counsel to Always Be... Read more
That’s the title of my latest entry over at The Catholic Thing. Here’s how it begins: Reading the transcript of Tuesday’s oral arguments before the Supreme Court in the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga cases, I came across this exchange between Justice Elena Kagan and the attorney for Hobby Lobby, Paul Clement: MR. CLEMENT: Well, just to put this in concrete terms, for Hobby Lobby, for example, the choice is between paying a 500 – a $475 million per year penalty and paying a $26 million per... Read more
That’s the title of Kathryn Jean Lopez’s interview of me in today’s National Review Online. Here’s how it begins: KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: What are your thoughts as D.C. is about to see a March for Life against 41 years of legal abortion in America? FRANCIS J. BECKWITH: Even though the advocates of the belief that unborn life lacks moral status have had over four decades to completely inoculate the wider culture from the sanctity-of-life ethic (through the media, the academy,... Read more
(HT: First Things) From the 1979 movie Hardcore. (Language Warning: F-word employed at the end) Read more
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