A Church Interior by Pieter Neefs the Elder (PD-US). I wrote this essay following the mass shooting at Minneapolis’s Annunciation Catholic School. Demonization of entire groups has only intensified since then—toward Blacks in the wake of the public-transit stabbing of Iryna Zarutska, and toward transgender people and leftists after the Charlie Kirk assassination. I believe…
Church of St. John at Kaneo, Ohrid by Kallerna (CC BY-SA 4.0). The perception that Christianity is under attack has long animated American political culture. Conservative American Christians even claim that Christians are the most persecuted religious group worldwide. Vice President J.D. Vance recently tweeted that, “All over the world, Christians are the most persecuted…
Reading the Bible by Jean-Baptiste Greuze (US-PD). During the Protestant Reformation, the Herborn Academy was a Calvinist Reformed institution located in German territory, which was therefore Lutheran. It operated from 1584 until 1817. Herborn was the cradle of covenant theology, also known as federal theology. Due to its adherence to Calvinism, it was never officially…
Christian Natural Law and Religious FreedomAlex Deagon The following is an excerpt from Chapter 5 of Alex Deagon’s new book, Christian Natural Law and Religious Freedom: A Foundation Based on Love, the True, and the Good (Copyright 2025 by Imprint). Reproduced by permission of Taylor & Francis Group. Page numbers refer to publications linked in…
The Inquisition Tribunal by Francisco Goya (PD-Art). Bartolomé de Las Casas (c.1484–1566)—the first Catholic bishop of the Americas—commented on many of the controversies of the Spanish Empire of his day. While he never evaluated the Inquisition in writing, his life intersected with it several times. (Curiously, though Las Casas was possibly descended from conversos, or…
Scenes from the Life of Saint Augustine of Hippo via Metropolitan Museum of Art (US-PD). On June 21, Pope Leo XIV delivered one of his first statements on Catholic social teaching. Addressing members of the International Inter-Parliamentary Union, he emphasized themes that are emerging as focuses for his papacy: unity, dialogue, and the challenges presented…
The Facade of St. Peter’s Basilica upon Leo XIV’s first appearance via WikiMedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). With the election of Leo XIV, the Catholic Church embarks on a new chapter in its rich universal history–this time set against the backdrop of a globalized and fragmented world, one that is heavily armed and yearning for…
Image by David Geitgey Sierralupe on Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 2.0) The United States has a policing problem. American police have killed over 1,000 people each year for the past decade and kill at a far higher rate than police in any other wealthy democracy. They use force on over 300,000 people per year, injuring approximately…
Basilica of Saint Peter by Carlo Armanni from Pixabay. Pope Francis envisions human fraternity in his 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti. This essay explores how “fraternal pluralism” guides the Church’s respect for personal conscience. This teaching reflects aspects of earlier Church history and the Vatican II document Dignitatis Humanae, and it can be illustrated by examining…
In and Out of ChurchSteven Tipton The following is an adapted excerpt from Steven Tipton’s new book, “In and Out of Church: The Moral Arc of Spiritual Change in America.” With permission from Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2025. Freedom of conscience runs deep in the American grain of religious practice and belief all the way…