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Most Americans will not begin adopting avelut practices in any kind of wholesale manner. But it offers insights into the human condition that may nonetheless be helpful—about the timing of the grief cycle, the need to honor the departed free from distraction, and how communities might adopt robust mourning structures to support those who are suffering. 
These essays are not provided out of callousness or a lack of empathy, but if we are to be responsible, we must be well-informed so that we can judge and choose in keeping with the truth of things.
The enduring source of the Children of Israel’s exceptional, future-oriented natalism is their intense, equally exceptional rootedness in their shared past.
It is time—indeed, past time—to act decisively. Ukraine is our neighbor. Will Russia, with her imperial designs and commitment to do the unthinkable, be deterred? Are we in the West willing to confront sociopolitical evil? And do so in the name of justice, charity, and human dignity?
As I revisited the familiar lyrics from my childhood, I noticed new themes and deeper meanings. To my surprise, I soon reached the unlikely conclusion that this classic family film has much to teach us about women, work, and feminism.
Whatever our centuries of godless materialism and scientism have alleged, the cosmos still is enchanted, inasmuch as it was and is being created, even now, by a loving and surpassingly mysterious God. To tell the truth is to admit that this cosmos bears his fingerprints, opening out into blinding wonder and moments of ineffable transcendence.
Maier’s love for the Church comes through in this book and is why others who love the Church will want to read it. Perhaps we can hope for a sequel in which we will get to hear more of Maier in his own words. 
This moment, among other things, may call for something as banal as looking around, embracing and underscoring the figures and images that capture what is enduringly good about normal American life.
If the stories can change, it stands to reason that they can improve—or deteriorate. Responsible cultural elites of the Left and Right alike would do well to consider not only what claims they make explicitly, but what kinds of stories underlie those claims, and whether these are the right stories to tell.
Chastity is a way of being more holistically directed toward our happiness regardless of the desires and attractions we experience.
Our bodies cause great inconvenience. Nothing about menstruation, ovulation, or having children is convenient, after all. But it’s the way we were created, and there are better ways to respond to the sexual asymmetry of men and women. What are we losing out on if we suppress it?
Thomas Aquinas had an intellect fully alive. We might not share his title of Doctor of Humanity, but we have the same obligation: to cheerfully explore all, in service of all, for the good of all.
Religion is a basic good for all human beings everywhere, therefore religious freedom is a universal human right. It is neither unfair nor parochial, but a requirement of justice.
If we were to adopt Yoram’s call for censorship in areas where I am calling for freedom of speech, I invite him—and you, gentle reader—to consider the following question: Would the result be anything other than the further entrenchment of current campus orthodoxies, and the further weakening of protection for dissent and dissenters?
There is a case for cursing the darkness. But it is better to light a candle, and better still to light many.
Our reading recommendations from a year of contemplation and enchantment. 
Crucially, Kaplan sees the fragility of American life not just in the low-income neighborhoods of inner-city Philadelphia, but in the isolation of otherwise well-off suburbs. His goal is to resurrect the idea of the neighborhood as a specific place with a distinctive sense of community. It’s a cultural narrative that runs counter to a mentality that prioritizes mobility over stability.
Joseph Ratzinger looked at reality straight on, without blinders, neither a pessimist nor an optimist; with trepidation but always with Christian hope. He persevered, trusting in the promises of Christ as we must. He did so as almost all of us have to, without benefit of any special grace.
How would you answer the basic question of philosophical anthropology: What does it mean to be human? How does that answer affect your life?
Recent revelations about sexual harassment, assault, and abuse underscore certain blunt realities about men, women, and sex. How can we confront those realities in a way that leads to less sexual violence?
There is no romance without the real presence of God, no sacramental imagination without the sacraments, and the wonders of fantasy cannot be asserted of primary reality itself.
By embracing the fact that we do not belong to ourselves, we are not “our own person,” we may discover that responsibility for our dignity in both life and death belongs to God and to others, as it does to our own choices. The acknowledgment of human vulnerability and dependence may well be the antidote to the fear and anxiety at the root of the modern denial of death. 
Our schools are failing not because of what happens in the classroom, but because of what happens—or more to the point, what doesn’t happen—at the dinner table. If we wish to be a serious people, then we must bolster our institutions with the power to humanize and domesticate the bedlam within us all.
By co-creating with God, we imitate his goodness, participate in his governance, and bring more of creation into the divine unity.