The Catholic Thing

By George J. Marlin.

When Donald Trump lost the closely contested 2020 election to Joe Biden, 51 percent of Catholics supported him, as did 61 percent of Evangelicals, and 35 percent of Jewish voters. In 2024, Trump received a majority of the national vote thanks to the support of 58 percent of Catholics, 68 percent of Evangelicals, and 39 percent of Jewish voters. It was a remarkable comeback built on a coalition of middle- and working-class folks of every religion and every ethnicity.

To get a sense of what motivated Catholics and other Americans to vote on November 5, the noted pollsters and Trump advisors McLaughlin Associates performed a national post-election survey that gets into the weeds on issues and attitudes. John McLaughlin, a friend for over 30 years, was kind enough to share with me his findings, some of which surprised me, particularly the polling on abortion.

Here's an overview of the survey's findings:

Of the Catholics who voted for Trump, 90 percent said it was a vote for him. Only 10 said percent it was a vote against Harris. By contrast, 28 percent of Catholics who supported Harris cast an anti-Trump vote.

When Catholics were asked when they knew which presidential candidate they were going to support, 61 percent indicated they decided before Labor Day. Twelve percent were undecided until early November.

A majority of Catholics (56 percent) believe the Republican Party will do a better job addressing issues that matter most to them. Sixty-one percent indicated that the GOP is best suited to improve the economy and to create more jobs. Sixty-three percent of Catholics believe the GOP will secure the border; 58 percent agree that the GOP will be better at fighting crime.

A plurality of all voters (44 percent) favor smaller government and fewer services, with 35 percent supporting increased government largesse. Catholic sentiment was in line with Americans: 48 percent favor less government and 37 percent favor more.

On the issue of character, despite the media's constant bashing of Trump - and Democrats calling him a Nazi, a threat to democracy, and a convicted felon - 51 percent of overall voters and 58 percent of Catholics perceived Trump as the more likable candidate.

For the relevant polling numbers, see the website version of this column.

The most important issue for voters was economics. Forty-seven percent said they were struggling financially as did 49 percent of Catholics.

And the abortion issue?

Election Day was not a good one for the pro-life movement. Pro-abortion referenda won in eight states and lost in only three.

Nationally, abortion was the top issue for 8 percent of voters. For women, it was 10 percent; for men 6 percent. Three percent of Trump voters and 14 percent of Harris supporters considered it highly important. Seven percent of whites, 12 percent of blacks, and 2 percent of Hispanics rated it the number one issue.

Which political party will do a better job of representing their views on abortion?

For the relevant polling numbers and the breakdown between pro-life and pro-choice voters, see the website version of this column.

When asked what comes closest to your personal opinion about abortion laws: Nineteen percent of pro-lifers replied that an abortion should be permitted to save the life of a mother; 31percent in the case of rape or incest; 50 percent in a medical emergency.

Thirty-four percent of pro-choice voters believe abortion should be legal up to 6 weeks; 34 percent up to 24 weeks; and 43 percent said abortion should be legal for any reason at any time.

As for using tax dollars to pay for abortions, the polls can be found on the website version of this column.

What do these polling numbers on abortion indicate?

Sixty years after Vatican II, not only has Catholic influence declined in the public square, but "cafeteria" Catholic politicians who have claimed for decades that abortion is merely a religious matter, and therefore, the Church's position on abortion must not be i...

By Francis X. Maier.

Back in my years as a religion news editor (1978-93), one of my self-imposed penances was reading The Nation. A taste for diversity, we're told, is a good thing. And at the time, the magazine was remarkably "diverse," at least in its own peculiar way. It had a wide variety of outrage from the bitter Left, curated by a tribe of unhappy, closet Stalinists. Leaving it behind when I moved to a new job was a blessing. And the world today is a different place. But some things never change. The Nation is one of them, as I discovered this week wandering the Internet.

Writing for The Nation earlier this month, Orlando Reade posed the question "Why is the Right obsessed with epic poetry?" It turns out, he said, that right-wing heavies like Elon Musk are hijacking the work of the Greek poet Homer (The Iliad and The Odyssey) and Roman poet Virgil (The Aeneid) to justify their own self-serving objectives. "Epics have often shored up empires," Reade writes, and Musk's recent "daydreaming about the Trojan War" flows from his own appetite for political empire-building and a desire to colonize Mars.

An assistant professor of English in Britain, Mr. Reade has a flare for long-distance psychoanalysis. So there's more. In the case of Jordan Peterson, he suggests, epic poetry helps to "maintain his [own] dualistic psychology." The resulting right-wing "dog whistles [in Peterson's work] appear to encourage young white male readers to see their resentments of a pluralistic liberal society as justified."

Meanwhile, for wealthy venture capitalist Peter Thiel, the epic tale inspires his drive to "accomplish something world changing." And for Mark Zuckerberg and other Silicon Valley royalty, the powerful characters that inhabit ancient history and its poetry undergird a "new epic vision of right-wing technocracy."

On the other hand, Emily Wilson's new translation of The Odyssey - the first by a woman, purged of "misogyny," but, alas, criticized as woke by some on the troglodyte Right - is admirable. Or so one might infer from The Nation.

The current fascination with epic Greek and Roman poems has spilled over into film. Christopher Nolan's next project - he directed Oppenheimer - is a massive-scale production of The Odyssey, set for release in 2026. On a more modest budget, Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche starred in 2024's The Return, already available for rental. The Return captures the last act of The Odyssey, wherein Odysseus (Ulysses in Roman tradition) finally returns home to his island of Ithaca and the woman he loves, his wife Penelope, after years of troubled wandering.

An obvious question poses itself, though: Why would any of this matter? And why would 2,500-year-old poems be suddenly relevant now?

For the cultural Left, the answer is easy. Homer and Virgil are just two more (among many) talented male writers unaware of their own historically determined thought crimes: patriarchy, sexism, slavery, racism - the Greeks regarded nearly all non-Greek peoples as barbaroi - violence against women, etc. Thus, they naturally appeal to ambitious men with dangerous designs. The poets' flawed brilliance, the astonishing genius of their work, has poisoned centuries of Western self-understanding.

All such literature interferes with necessary change. It subverts the arc of history. It needs to be confronted, deconstructed, revised. or simply purged. And the logic for such brutality is airtight. The past shapes the present, and the present shapes the future. In a classic Orwellian sense, controlling the past is the first step to a better future and a new humanity - whatever those might be, in the mindset of a particular ideology.

In a broader, popular sense, we live in a turbulent age, a time of radical unrest, innovation, and change when (as Marx said) "all that is solid melts into air, [and] all that is holy is profaned." People are hungry for anything grounded and permanent. Anything that can provide them with a meaningful story...

By Michael Pakaluk.

But first a note: Be sure to tune in tonight - Thursday, January 16th at 8 PM Eastern - to EWTN for a new episode of the Papal Posse on 'The World Over.' TCT Editor-in-Chief Robert Royal and contributor Fr. Gerald E. Murray will join host Raymond Arroyo to discuss the appointment of Cardinal Robert McElroy to head the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., the appointment of the first woman to head a Vatican dicastery, and other issues in the global Church. Check your local listings for the channel in your area. Shows are usually available shortly after first airing on the EWTN YouTube channel.

Now for today's column...

"Among mortals, second thoughts are wiser," wrote Euripides famously. Our first thought when someone suffers a loss should simply be condolence; followed by silence and a prayer. But then inevitably we arrive at second thoughts: "He didn't follow his doctor's advice. What did he expect?" "Looking at the phone while driving." "Yet another casualty of psychedelic drugs." And so on.

Like everyone else, I am aghast at the loss of lives and homes in the Los Angeles fires, and I pray. But I offer some second thoughts.

First, I consider that the Getty Museum provides a standard, for how prudent persons with custody of valuables should act. They value their collection; they are aware that the city government cannot be relied upon to protect it, given periodic fires fanned by the Santa Anna winds. Therefore, they have cleared their grounds of brush, installed a sprinkler system, planted water-absorbing trees all around, made their roof out of fire-resistant crushed rock, and they keep on hand a team of over 30 employees, as an ad hoc private fire-fighting team.

Presumably, if they were unable to take such precautions, they would feel compelled to move their collection. Knowing what they do, if they did not move their collection, and it was destroyed, we should conclude that either they did not value the collection sufficiently, or they were imprudent, or they took a risk and suffered the consequences.

A similar judgment it seems must be reached about anyone who had the means to live somewhere else but chose nonetheless to accept the risk. Didn't Our Lord warn about building houses on sand?

Second, I think of envy and its daughters. Not a few people, I suspect, have secretly been delighted to learn of the destruction of the houses of celebrities and the rich in Pacific Palisades. Why else do the lists of those houses serve as clickbait? But it should not be a surprise that we delight in the misfortune of others, because our society is rife with envy - much of it going under the name of "social justice." And anyone who finds sorrow in the good fortune of the prosperous, which is envy, will take solace in the bad fortune of the prosperous.

From there, as Sts. Thomas and Gregory teach, it is short step to another daughter, hatred. The word "hatred" gets abused today, love often being called hatred. We have seen little of true hatred. But keep stoking envy, and the demon face of hatred will assuredly follow.

Third, I think of Bastiat's windows and World War II. Claude-Frédéric Bastiat, as you may know. showed the fallacy of people who said it was a good thing if someone's window was smashed, because that created work for the glazier. Indeed it did, Bastiat said, but do not neglect the unseen cost, the "opportunity cost," which is where the money paid to the glazier might have been otherwise productively put to work.

I have not so far heard anyone foolishly celebrating the L.A. fires as a boon to the city's economy. Let's then take that wise second thought away with us and stop saying, for example, that blowing up cities in World War II was a boon to the world's economy, lifting it out of a depression.

Fourth, I think yet again about World War II. "It looks like Dresden or Hiroshima," many have said spontaneously. Yes, it does, or like 100 other German and 200 other Japanese cities we firebombed.

The LA fires...

By Casey Chalk.

When we think of the doctors of the Church - those great saints especially recognized for their contributions to Catholic theology or doctrine - we think of figures such as St. Augustine and his prolific theological output; St. Thomas and his foundational Summa Theologiae; or the sophisticated mysticism of St. Teresa of Avila. Most Catholics have at least some passing knowledge of them, and perhaps even one of their texts on the bookshelf. Far fewer, I'd speculate, possess something written by St. Anthony of Padua.

To my shame, I didn't even realize St. Anthony was a doctor of the Church until reading Valentin Strappazzon's biography, Anthony of Padua: Franciscan, Preacher, Teacher, Saint. He's known as an intercessor for those who have lost something important, an unexpected preaching prodigy whose gifts were revealed at a meeting of Franciscans and Dominicans, and - of course - a favorite namesake for generations of Italian-Americans. But why Doctor Evangelicus, as Pope Pius XII declared almost eighty years ago?

In his 1946 Apostolic Letter Exulta, Lusitania felix, Pius XII praised not only the "sanctity of his [St. Anthony's] life and the glorious fame of his miracles but also for the splendor that his heavenly doctrine spreads everywhere, he illuminated, and still continues to illuminate, the entire world with a most brilliant light." Yet unlike many other doctors of the Church, St. Anthony left us no spiritual autobiography or extended theological treatises. All we have are about 77 relatively short texts (almost 60 are sermons).

As even Strappazon acknowledges, these sermons can seem "somewhat opaque" due to their structure, as well as "using a vocabulary abounding in etymologies and symbols that are no longer evocative for readers today." Thus, for example, St. Anthony would preach his sermons by systematically working through the clauses and sentences of a Biblical text, explaining each in turn. This, admittedly, is not a method that conforms to modern Biblical exegesis or homiletics.

Nevertheless, St. Anthony drew from both the Western Fathers - such as St. Augustine, St. Gregory the Great, St. Isidore, and St. Bernard of Clairvaux - as well as the Cappadocian Fathers and other great spirits. "Whoever reads the sermons carefully," writes Pius XII, "will find Anthony an expert exegete of the Holy Scriptures and an outstanding theologian in his analysis of dogmatic truths, a distinguished doctor and teacher in the treatment of ascetic and mystical doctrines."

Indeed, as the medieval text Assidua notes, St. Anthony's contemporary Pope Gregory IX was stupefied by the Franciscan's "ability to draw from the Scriptures original and profound meanings," labeling him "an ark, a treasure-house, of the Testament."

The sermons, says Strappazon, cover "not only theology, ethics, and spirituality, but also the natural sciences, philosophy, psychology, physiology, medicine, the arts, and the animal world." For example, in one sermon St. Anthony affirms the goodness of the natural order in language that resembles that of St. Thomas in the Summa: "God, sovereign from whom comes all that is good, extends his goodness to all things that exist."

In a reflection on Ecclesiastes 12:5, describing the grasshopper growing fat, St. Anthony compares the grasshopper to the poor, because both "burrow in the hedges when it is cold."

A reflection on Luke 6:36 ("Be merciful as your Father is merciful") explains how the merciful is one who "suffers with," and empathizes with the other in compassion, making the "heart sad (cor miserum) when it suffers because of the misery of another."

Yet my favorite example is St. Anthony's analysis of Ecclesiastes 12:1-2 and 6-7, particularly his reflection on the phrase "before the bad times come and the years about which you will say: 'I do not like them.'" The great Franciscan preacher explains: "But days will come which will not please you. You have pleased yourself but you have displeased God...

By Brad Miner.

Before he leaves office, Joe Biden will not be meeting with Pope Francis as planned. The Los Angeles wildfires put an end to that - or so we're told. But the original plan got me curious about such meetings and what they mean. It's a complex but, at least sometimes, significant history.

If you were to do an Internet search, you'd likely read that the first president to visit a pope was Woodrow Wilson in 1919. That's not true, not even close, unless you add the modifier sitting. Then, yes, Wilson, who was in Europe after World War I for the Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920), was the first "current occupant of the White House" to visit the Apostolic Palace.

A further distinction: some former presidents met with popes (or tried to), and sitting presidents have met with men who would become popes. In this latter category, Franklin Delano Roosevelt met with Vatican Secretary of State Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli at the president's Hyde Park home during the future Pius the twelfth's 1936 visit to the United States. A similar meeting happened in Rome when George W. Bush met with Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger at the funeral of John Paul II.

But before the 20th century, official meetings with a pope in the U.S. would have been unwelcome had they been possible. No pope had ever crossed the Atlantic until Paul the sixth's historic visit to America in 1965. Pope Paul would eventually visit twenty countries and was the first ever to travel outside of Europe. In New York, he met with Lyndon Johnson at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

Had Pius the twelfth's or John XXIII decided to be the first to visit America, they likely would not have been invited to the White House. Had John F. Kennedy escaped assassination and won a second term, I suspect Paul the sixth would have been welcomed there. But before the election of our first Catholic president, lingering anti-Catholicism would have prevented it.

But before Wilson's 1919 audience with Benedict XV, no fewer than four former presidents visited with a pope while in Rome: Martin Van Buren and Millard Fillmore met separately with Pius IX in 1855. Pio Nono also met with Franklin Pierce in 1857. Ulysses S. Grant met with Leo XIII in 1878, just about a year after the end of Grant's second term. Was this an early sign that official anti-Catholicism was on the wane? Perhaps.

After leaving the presidency, Theodore Roosevelt wanted to meet with Pius X at the Vatican, and the pope agreed, but with the stipulation that Roosevelt not call upon a Protestant group working to convert Catholics in Rome. Roosevelt wasn't even aware there was such a group, but he was miffed and refused. (An interesting backstory: In 1869, the Roosevelt family was making the European Grand Tour and had an audience with Pius IX during which the 11-year-old Teddy kissed the pope's ring!)

Recently deceased president Jimmy Carter has the distinction of being the first president to host a pope at the White House. Every subsequent president has done so - except for Joe Biden, whose presidency did not coincide with Francis' lone visit to America.

But Biden has had several meetings with Pope Francis at the Vatican. This was also true of Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, Obama, and Trump. What was once unthinkable in American politics has become very important, as America's chief executives have sought the sometimes elusive and often unpredictable Catholic vote.

These Vatican meetings - let's be frank - are usually little more than photo ops. They are cordial, and ring-kissing is a thing of the past, although Joe Biden has more than once come embarrassingly close to kissing Francis in a most inappropriate manner. But he does that with everybody.

In meetings between Pope Francis and Donald Trump, the usual cordiality fails to disguise an underlying tension that arises from their disagreements about immigration - or, as the papal side of the controversy would have it, migr...

By Auguste Meyrat.

The fine-tuning argument for God, which details how a multitude of physical variables come together to enable human existence, is among the strongest an apologist can make from the facts of science. The odds of such a universe arising randomly are infinitesimal and thus strongly point to an omniscient and omnipotent Intelligence.

Some people misconceive God as an anthropomorphized myth (or "Sky Daddy") like Zeus or Odin, flying around and performing miracles, not as a Prime Mover outside time and space with the capacity to affect physical reality.

Many skeptics reject the fine-tuning argument, however, because of a misconception of science itself. They believe that some expert or sophisticated robot will eventually show that the universe is the product of impersonal forces. Surely, some physicist will prove that our universe was the product of currently unknown natural phenomenon, not an Intelligent Designer.

Writer and classicist Spencer Klavan argues in his new book,

Light of the Mind, Light of the World: Illuminating Science Through Faith, that not only does this rebuttal fixate on secondary causes instead of primary ones, it also betrays an understanding that is completely out of sync with modern physics.

The notion of a scientific method where phenomena can be observed and tested has largely been superseded. Rather, we have reached a point where the lines between objectivity and subjectivity have become blurred, and human participation in creation ends up playing a large role.

Before Klavan reaches this epiphany, he begins with a brief but beautiful history of Western science, starting with sages of the ancient world, who came up with theories (not myths!) that would account for the cosmos. In their vigorous deductions and speculations, early Greek philosophers like Thales, Pythagoras, Parmenides, and Empedocles effectively laid the groundwork for giants like Aristotle to develop a comprehensive model of the cosmos.

For centuries, this model was sufficient. But in the Middle Ages, it came under renewed scrutiny and eventual criticism by men like Jean Buridan and Nicholas Oresme who wondered about the forces that led to the movement of bodies. Those movements were attributed to various spirits that "flew about on invisible wings of desire to get where they were going."

During the Renaissance, Copernicus and Galileo finally produced a model of the world that accounted for the actual position of bodies and followed a discernible pattern. This idea was then refined and expanded by other legendary scientists such as Kepler, Bacon, and especially Newton who finally solved the mystery of the movement of bodies.

Although a devout believer himself, Newton inadvertently inspired the many ideological iterations of Scientism that came to constitute the foundation of modern industrialized culture. Every aspect of life was reinterpreted through a materialist lens and subjected to ostensibly scientific principles. Soul and spirit were cast aside, resulting in some of history's most inhumane - and murderous - social systems.

Meanwhile, physicists continued to make new discoveries, specifically in the areas of electricity and atomic theory. In addition to matter, scientists like Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell would demonstrate how energy played a key role in physical laws: "Maxwell's electromagnetisim was making impossible demands on the Newtonian physics that was supposed to govern objects, straining the older system to its breaking point."

Einstein would finally usher in a new era in science when he "proceeded to take physics down to the studs and rebuild it" by declaring that "Matter could become energy." According to Klavan, the significance of this idea lay in its "changing [the physical world] from an empty grid of space containing matter into a seething ocean of fluctuating energy."

This in turn led to a generation of physicists studying the behavior of atoms, atomic energy, and light. Again, familiar...

By Christian Browne.

The first jubilee was the result of popular piety that found papal approbation. In 1299, word spread across Europe that the pilgrims to St. Peter's tomb would receive a plenary indulgence with the dawn of the new century. Responding to the growing crowds in the Eternal City, on February 22, 1300, Boniface the eighth issued a Papal Bull declaring a Holy Year and formally offering the most indulgent of indulgences to those faithful who venerated the Apostles Peter and Paul at their respective basilicas. Contemporary sources say perhaps 200,000 pilgrims made the journey to Rome, instituting a pious custom that endures more than seven centuries later.

The first jubilee was a triumph, yet history has been rather unkind to Boniface the eighth. Dante, who participated in the pilgrimage, helped to spoil Boniface's reputation by predicting in Inferno that the pope would wind up in Hell amongst the simoniacs, though historical evidence for that particular papal sin is slender. Boniface is often held up as an aggressive, even absurd, proponent of papal power, largely based upon the final sentence in his bull Unam Sanctam: "Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff."

Unam Sanctam, however, is not the medieval equivalent of a modern totalitarian manifesto. It was an attempt to re-state the principles of the proper governance of society - a Constitution of Christendom - under which "there are two swords; namely, the spiritual and the temporal."

The temporal sword is a legitimate source of authority entrusted to the hand of the prince, distinct from but, ultimately, at the service of the Spiritual Sword. Spiritual matters are obviously superior to temporal concerns. From the perspective of Faith, this conception is logical and indisputable. It is not a claim to worldly power after the manner of a dictator, but a natural consequence of the order of Creation.

The Constitution of Christendom did not endorse absolute monarchy. On the contrary, the pope, as Vicar of Christ, had the right and the duty to judge princes. The potens iudicaris was not an arbitrary power of subjective preferences, but one based upon the objective application of the moral law. It was a guarantor of equality, because all men, pauper or prince, are subject to the Divine Law. A king is not excused from, and is not beyond, the moral law. The Church exists to enforce the moral precepts.

The natural supremacy of the Spiritual Sword also enabled the pope to act as arbiter in conflicts between princes. The pope could seek peace, settling violent conflicts among the Christian nations. Dissolute and immoral rulers who might be cruel, tyrannical or unfaithful could face the sting of the Spiritual Sword, since the pope might impose punishments such as excommunication or interdict, as warranted.

By the close of the 13th century, the rising nation-states, England and France, began to chafe under this constitutional order and the annoying interference of the Church that it permitted. The French King Philip IV was a ruthless operator - a throwback to Emperor Henry IV and a precursor of Henry VIII and Napoleon. He wished to curtail the independence of the Church and eliminate papal influence over the affairs of his kingdom.

Unam Sanctam was partly the result of the conflict that arose over Philip's assertion of the right to tax the clergy (he needed money for war) in defiance of canon law. Despite Boniface's attempts at conciliation, the dispute grew beyond taxation to touch the fundamentals of the rights of the papacy to govern the clergy. Philip also sought to place the Church under his control after the manner of the German Emperors, against whom Boniface's predecessors had struggled for over two hundred years.

Boniface could not let that happen. He was a tough, and perhaps somewhat rash, ruler, but he acted in good faith. Philip, on the other hand, had no intere...

By Daniel Gallagher.

The year 1976 was a good one to be a six-year-old boy from Pittsburgh. I wasn't too young to realize that Watergate had shaken our confidence in Washington and that inflation was pinching our pocketbooks, but I was old enough to celebrate the bicentennial with great pride. Snug in my Steelers helmet, I sped around the neighborhood on a Huffy, Stars and Stripes flapping high over my banana seat. That helmet was still squeezing my ears as I watched Jimmy Carter accept the Democratic presidential nomination one balmy July evening. We had No cellphones, no tablets, no laptops. Just a TV and an oven-heated TV dinner.

Such memories swirled in my head as the 39th president was laid to rest in Plains, Georgia on Thursday. My parents, steeped in the pro-life movement, didn't vote for him, of course. Our candidate went on to lose the Republican primary in August but would come roaring back to defeat Carter in 1980. Still, we had enormous respect for the peanut farmer from Georgia. However much we disagreed with his politics and were aghast at the increasingly pro-abortion platform of his party, he seemed to take his Christian faith seriously.

That became quite clear in an interview Carter gave to Playboy's Robert Scheer later in 1976. Though it received far too much attention at the time, the interview is well worth revisiting today for it shows the uncompromising fidelity expected of all of us when it comes to Gospel teaching.

Though Hugh Hefner's monthly was better known for its centerfolds, it did include some serious journalism. In fact, Carter was neither the first presidential figure Scheer interviewed nor the last. But what caught the nation's attention in Carter's interview was a confession that he had committed "lust" in his "heart" on many occasions. The ensuing media frenzy made us completely lose sight of his understanding of Scripture and himself. He was, in fact, unpacking the meaning both of serious sin and of God's forgiveness:

Committing adultery, according to the Bible - which I believe in - is a sin. For us to hate one another, for us to have sexual intercourse outside marriage, for us to engage in homosexual activities, for us to steal, for us to lie - all these are sins. But Jesus teaches us not to judge other people. We don't assume the role of judge and say to another human being, "You're condemned because you commit sins." All Christians, all of us, acknowledge that we are sinful and the judgment comes from God, not from another human being.

He got even more personal: "I try not to commit a deliberate sin. I recognize that I'm going to do it anyhow, because I'm human and I'm tempted. And Christ set some almost impossible standards for us. Christ said, 'I tell you that anyone who looks on a woman with lust has in his heart already committed adultery.' I've looked on a lot of women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times. This is something that God recognizes I will do - and I have done it - and God forgives me for it. But that doesn't mean that I condemn someone who not only looks on a woman with lust but who leaves his wife and shacks up with somebody out of wedlock."

The most impressive thing about Carter's exegesis is the seriousness with which he took Matthew 5:27-28. He practically equated adultery of the heart with adultery of the flesh. The irony, of course, is that his explanation appeared in a publication whose very purpose is to lure men into committing adultery in their hearts.

But in 1976, you had to make a serious effort to access that publication, and, in many quarters, it was still taboo. Most barbers wouldn't be caught dead with a copy of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue in their shops, let alone a Playboy. So, what Carter evidently had in mind was the way he looked at women fully clothed on the street. Neither he nor anyone else could have imagined the ease of accessibility to nudity and much worse in the years to follow.

We might be surprised to lear...

by David Warren.

In both Canada and the United States, we have Catholic "statesmen" (I use the term almost facetiously) retiring after many years of "service" (ditto). They are Mr. Justin Trudeau, up here in the Great White North, and Mr. Joe Biden, down there in the. . .south.

Both became extremely unpopular, and "good riddance" has been expressed pretty much across the spectrum of opinion. Yet curiously, neither experienced a spot of trouble for being a Catholic, or at least, telling us that he was.

Indeed, Mr. Biden sometimes entered churches, wore ash on Ash Wednesday, and, I'm told, sported pocket string beads sometimes described as "a Rosary." He proclaimed himself a very devout Catholic, while collecting a few votes for it. He also declared himself a devoted supporter of the woman's "right" to abort her children.

In this respect he was just like Trudeau, another public feminist, and an enthusiast for abortions.

Both were supporters of men who surgically "transitioned" into women, and women who surgically "transitioned" into men, including children against their parents' wishes.

They were "post-" in several ways. Mr. Trudeau liked to claim that he was "post-nationalist," and a friend to all "peoplekind." Mr. Biden mixed his disgendering principles with being the commander-in-chief of the world's most formidable military. He welcomed various DEIs and "post-whatevers" into its ranks and officer corps.

Nine years we endured Justin Trudeau in Canada (he still hasn't gone), but the Americans had to put up with only four of Joe Biden.

Or perhaps I should say that I and a few friends endured Justin, who won three national elections, and thus became one of many irresistible arguments against democracy. The peoplekind voted, until recently, in favor of his "good hair," and for nothing else they could articulate.

Nevertheless, a merciful God has provided that even the most incompetent and disastrous leaders should exhibit some virtue. Had Trudeau and Biden never been, we would not now be celebrating the victories of what they called the "far right."

We haven't seen the back of Mr. Trudeau yet, nor received his "Conservative" replacement. Under Canada's British parliamentary system, an election could happen at any time. But under the distinctly Canadian version of it, the prime minister has near-totalitarian powers. This is why parliament has been "prorogued," and we are still waiting for the election to be called.

Too, the governing Liberals might actually win the election, by choosing another "pop star" with good hair as a successor to Trudeau. Whereas, Ms. Kamala Harris did not prove enough of a pop star to succeed Biden.

Perhaps I should have warned the reader that I am somewhat biased. I am opposed to being ruled by idiots, especially malicious ones, and heretical, although almost as an afterthought.

One might read The Art of Being Ruled by Wyndham Lewis, to decide what degree of complacency to adopt.

Lewis, who shared approximately my view of democracy, argued that instead of being "the crowning achievement of Western civilization," it was the means of suppressing the true wants and needs of the populace.

By suppression of caste legitimacy, and vocational distinctions, and imposing universal propagandist education, democracy created the "post-humanist" mass man, who seldom even longs for freedom. He is only "institutionally" free, as part of vast regional voting blocks that may pool their resentments. Their freedom does not belong to them, but abstractly to a constituency.

Men without chests or faces control them through number games. Only occasionally a man with a face shows up to inspire chaos and confusion. But he, too, is a "Magister Ludi," playing the political game.

Wyndham Lewis wasn't a Catholic, though he was sympathetically drawn to Catholicism throughout his life. What I think the religion could have done, was to enlighten him on the role, in society, of the Devil.

Democracy presents a rich field of opportunity ...

By Stephen P. White.

But first a note: Be sure to tune in tonight - Thursday, January 9th at 8 PM Eastern - to EWTN for a new episode of the Papal Posse on 'The World Over.' TCT Editor-in-Chief Robert Royal and contributor Fr. Gerald E. Murray will join host Raymond Arroyo to discuss the appointment of Cardinal Robert McElroy to head the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., the appointment of the first woman to head a Vatican dicastery, and other issues in the global Church. Check your local listings for the channel in your area. Shows are usually available shortly after first airing on the EWTN YouTube channel.

Now for today's column...

A new year is a time of optimism and hope, a time for a fresh start. For many people, the beginning of a new year is a time for making resolutions. Usually, these are resolutions of self-improvement, even self-denial. We resolve to eat better, exercise more, shed a few pounds, spend more time with family, finally clear out the inbox, travel more, and the like.

These resolutions, of course, invariably stem from an awareness that something about how we have been living is not quite right. The hope in making New Year's resolutions is that something in one's life - something lacking or in excess, something out of place or out of order - might be corrected or at least improved.

No one makes a New Year's resolution to change nothing in the hope that things will thereby improve. Everyone who hopes to improve himself in some way knows that hope and complacency, if not exactly opposites, are incompatible.

If our goal, the object of our hope, is unrealistic, we are setting ourselves up for failure and disappointment. Our hope, if it is to remain true hope, needs to be well founded. If I, a 40-something Dad, want to establish a regular exercise routine and lose a few pounds and get in shape, that's reasonable. If I go to the gym with the hope of winning a starting job as power forward for the Chicago Bulls, that's nutty. Sound judgment often delineates the difference between genuine hope and foolish optimism.

At the same time, if I, a 40-something Dad, hope to establish a regular exercise routine, lose a few pounds, and get in shape but never do more than write about it, it is unreasonable for me to think that the goal will be accomplished. And here is the second point: In addition to sound judgment about the object of my hope for self-improvement, the attainment of the thing hoped for requires some action on my part.

There is an obvious parallel to the spiritual and moral life.

Faith is the virtue by which we believe in God and in all he has revealed to us through His Church. Christian hope arises from this knowledge that Christ has redeemed us by His death and resurrection. "Hope," as the Catechism tells us, "is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness." The attainment of this object by our own means, however, is not a reasonable thing for which to hope. It is only by the help of grace and the Holy Spirit that the promises of Christ are attainable.

Happily for us, God does not wait until we are worthy to offer us the surety of hope. "God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us," writes St. Paul. God acts first; we respond.

"We love God because he first loved us," as we read in the first epistle of John. The knowledge of God's unmerited love for us and the limitless bounty of His mercy opens for us the possibility of returning that love.

Unless we know we are sinners, we cannot grasp what God has done for us. It is by faith that we know God's offer of mercy which is our hope. And it is God's victory over sin and death that makes that hope reasonable.

As with our New Year's resolutions, it is necessary but not sufficient to know that I need to change something in my life. If I know that I must change, it is necessary but not sufficient that I have a reasonable hope for what I desire to attain. And if I have know...