Commencement Thoughts

Posted: Wednesday, July 1, 1998
A Quick Test: (a) Who was the commencement speaker at your high school graduation? (b) At your college graduation? (c) Regardless of your answer to (a) or (b), can you recall anything he or she had to say?   [Full Story]

The Destiny of Character

Posted: Friday, May 1, 1998
Whether William Jefferson Clinton will spend his last days in office defending himself before an impeachment inquiry in the House of Representatives is debatable, but his presidency is almost certainly damaged beyond repair. In one of his few memorable statements, Jimmy Carter said that on the important issues a president's advisers are more or less always equally divided. The same might be said of public opinion, which tends to sort itself out in volatile, confusing, and conflicting ways until acted upon by a clear and persuasive outside force. In American politics, that force is more often than not the voice of the president.   [Full Story]

Clues from Character

Posted: Wednesday, April 1, 1998
Men are fitted for civil liberty," Edmund Burke once wrote, "in exact proportion to their capacity to place chains upon their own appetites.... It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free; their passions form their fetters." This pithy reflection, although penned at the height of French revolutionary excess, captures the essential practical truth of political life at all times and places nowhere more so than in a democratic regime, where the character of a people bears a reciprocal relation to the virtues and vices of their chosen leaders.   [Full Story]

A Legacy of Judicial Fiat and Legislative Compassion

Posted: Monday, September 1, 1997
The recent death of Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. was attended with much ceremony, including the equivalent of a state funeral at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington and a eulogy delivered by the President of the United States.   [Full Story]

The Month that Changed the World

Posted: Sunday, June 1, 1997
May, 1997 may become known in pro-life annals as the month that changed the world. First, a little pre-history. In late summer of last year Congress passed a legislative ban on partial-birth abortion, the barbaric procedure in which the child is partially delivered for the sole purpose of killing it. Scissors are thrust into the base of the infant's skull, its brains are evacuated, the skull is collapsed, and the remains are then fully delivered. The only proper reaction to such savagery is one of horror, and a properly horrified Congress responded.   [Full Story]

New Hope for Chicago

Posted: Thursday, May 1, 1997
Providence smiled, and Francis George, former Bishop of Yakima and Archbishop of Portland, was named to head the Archdiocese of Chicago. Providence in this case happened to act through the person of His Holiness John Paul II, servum servorum Christi, with an assist from the Vatican Congregation of Bishops, which vets episcopal candidates for the Holy Father. This time, they not only hit the target, they nailed the bulls-eye. Bishop George is an inspired -- and inspiring -- choice. The 2.6 million Catholics of Chicago will not soon forget their beloved Cardinal Bernardin, RIP, but in their native son, Francis George, they are going to discover a man for all seasons. Or, as they'd say in the old Northwest Side neighborhood where he grew up, he's gonna knock their socks off.   [Full Story]

Multiplying Hit Men

Posted: Sunday, December 1, 1996
Next January, the Supreme Court will review two lower federal court rulings granting constitutional protection to physician-assisted suicide. In the first case, the question to be decided is whether the Due Process Clause guarantees the right of a terminally ill patient to commit suicide and, if so, whether that includes the right to be assisted in the act. In the second case, the question is whether a state unfairly discriminates by allowing terminally ill patients on life support to cease treatment, while denying to patients not on life support the right to active physician assistance in ending their lives. Few opinions of the Court in this or any other term have been freighted with greater gravity: what could be more important than the determination of the rule by which society determines who shall live and who shall die?   [Full Story]

Cynical Citizens

Posted: Tuesday, October 1, 1996
Seldom has the nation seen a more desultory presidential campaign. With scarcely two months to go, the Republicans have yet to articulate a theme capable of firing the moral imagination of the electorate. Tax-cut talk, which was supposed to do the trick, has produced only yawns of indifference or skepticism, and on virtually every other issue in sight, Bill Clinton has masterfully co-opted the Republican agenda.   [Full Story]

The Legal Logic of Euthanasia

Posted: Saturday, June 1, 1996
Critics of Roe v. Wade have long contended that the principles used to justify abortion would soon or late be used to justify other forms of medical killing such as voluntary and, eventually, involuntary euthanasia. Slippery slope arguments are often overdone, but the fact remains that virtually every argument for taking a human life in utero can be applied to a human life ex utero, including yours and mine.  [Full Story]

Flattering the Fish Eaters

Posted: Friday, March 1, 1996
All of a sudden, Catholics are in. As reported in these pages last month, the Clinton White House is knocking itself silly trying to look "Catholic" - frequent allusions to John F. Kennedy, a presidential visit to Ireland, a Hillary photo op with Mother Teresa, private briefings designed to flatter selected Catholic journalists, invocation of the pope in nationally televised speeches, that sort of thing.   [Full Story]