Ross Douthat’s greatest contribution has not been to conservative politics or even to Catholic debates. It has been to demonstrate that Catholicism remains an intellectually serious way of understanding the world.
Faith
Posted inIdeas
No one reads anymore. But you should if you want to be a good Catholic.
If we really are entering a postliterate culture, what does that mean for faith?
Posted inCatholic Book Club
Caryll Houselander: Britain’s ‘rocking-horse Catholic’ and bohemian disciple
The writings of Caryll Houselander, a mid-century British artist, poet and spiritual writer, remain for many a treasure trove of honest reflections on faith.
Posted inIdeas
‘Turn Around’: The Bonnie Tyler-inspired youth ministry skit that formed—and scarred—a generation
For many young American Christians, “Total Eclipse of the Heart” wasn’t the soundtrack to a painful breakup, but to a spiritual and in some cases traumatic experience.
Posted inBooks
JD Vance can tell a story of conversion. But of communion—not quite yet.
JD Vance’s story suggests he has taken from the church its beauty, its authority and its pedigree but the pews and the people in them he has largely left behind.
Posted inFaith and Reason
The ‘Manosphere’ and a church against extremes
The church must stop allowing itself to be used as a tool in the Christian nationalist extremist resurgence in the United States today.
Posted inFeatures
Major-League Mass: When chaplains, players and staff gather for prayer, ballparks become cathedrals.
Masses and other religious services are not what one might expect to find in a baseball stadium—but for many MLB players, they are a Sunday pregame staple.
Posted inFaith and Reason
Faith, morality and the manosphere: A forum on male grievance and belonging
If Christian language, identity and even nationalism are being reshaped in a largely unmoored digital marketplace that blends masculinity, grievance and politics, how should the Catholic Church respond? Four scholars—Patrick Gilger, S.J., Margaret Felice, Susan Bigelow Reynolds and Peter Nguyen, S.J.—offer their reflections.
Posted inFaith and Reason
The ‘Manosphere’ and the formation of moral conscience
The Christian tradition has always affirmed asceticism, discipline and sacrifice. In the secular manosphere, however, these goods are severed from humility or empathy, as well as any sense of communion.
Posted inFaith and Reason
Adding a new script to the bro-sphere
How might the church respond to the situation in which we find ourselves? We ought first to see the manosphere for what it is: a group of people who share not an answer but a question. Second, we ought to be in the business of helping to write new social scripts—scripts that make an inclusive masculinity visible and attractive and accomplishable.