Ire and Education

What is it about schools that gets up the ire of so many of our secular neighbors? Across the nation, the movement to provide options for how taxpayers spend their money to educate their children is having some success, resulting in some strongly-worded op-eds. “Christian Nationalists Can’t Wait for This School in Oklahoma to Open” runs the headline in The New York Times opinion section, attached to a piece by Rachel Laser, president and chief executive of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. In this case, the phrase “Christian Nationalist” apparently means “Catholic,” as the school – named St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School – is a joint venture between the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa.

Secularism has long recognized the American public school system as a potenially powerful place for forming (or indoctrinating) the next generation into the modern secular vision. The post-Covid cracks in the hegemonic control of not saying “under God” or acknowledging anything convicting beyond STEM classes are frustrating to those who seek to purge traditional philosophy or theology from the public square and replace it with the religion of secularism. (Click here to read the op-ed mentioned above, behind a subscription wall.)

In another recent op-ed, an essayist argues that many cases of abortion should be considered self-defense. A Catholic author responds.

Discussions about new technological advances, like artificial intelligence and self-driving cars, often manifest anti-human ideas. One author identifies four antihumanisms commonly found in the modern vision and responds to each in kind: (1) human beings are weak, (2) human beings are obsolete, (3) human beings are fragile, and (4) human beings are hateful.

30 years ago, the mafia bombed St. John Lateran – the pope’s official cathedral in Rome – and took other violent actions against the Church in Italy in response to a public denunciation by St. John Paul II. Read the story of the “mafia’s last gasp against the Catholic Church” and those of some of the martyrs who have been killed in response to papal denunciations of violence and terrorism in recent decades.

The new cardinal-designate of Hong Kong hopes to build bridges between the Church and China.

Finally, Pope Francis reflects upon the urgency of returning to the practice of Eucharist Adoration for Catholics across the world. The pope’s remarks came from Lisbon, Portugal, where World Youth Day is currently underway.