Current Issues

For the great majority on both sides of the abortion debate, the idea of a pro-life feminist is the ultimate contradiction in terms. Abortion has become so central to feminist thinking that women who affirm their belief in both women's empowerment and the inalienable right to life can find themselves viewed with suspicion and hostility from both sides. Yet the author of this book is indeed a pro-life feminist, and her insightful analysis of contemporary issues can provide the basis for common ground between those defending human rights.

This book unashamedly calls mainstream feminists, journalists and Western politicians to account for their silence and - in some cases - vocal justification of the persecution of women because of an absolutist loyalty to abortion. It asks uncomfortable questions to those who claim to believe in women's empowerment: Where is their passionate outrage when Chinese women are forcibly aborted and sterilised? Where is their concern for the thousands of baby girls killed by abortion every year because their lives are held as worthless simply for being female? What about the thousands of women used as surrogates for wealthy Western couples, treated as chattels and denied their most basic human rights?

But the book also tackles difficult issues for the pro-life side--the need for a sensitive, realistic approach to problematic pregnancies and the importance of confronting the continued exploitation and abuse of women within a sexualised society.

Pro-life feminism is not only possible; it is vital if the complex struggles facing women are to be adequately met. The Abolition of Woman is a rallying cry to feminists to stand with the pro-life movement, fighting to build a society in which women are equal and every human life is protected.

Based on 20 years of research, including an examination of the papers of eight of the nine Justices who voted in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, Abuse of Discretion is a critical review of the behind-the-scenes deliberations that went into the Supreme Court's abortion decisions and how the mistakes made by the Justices in 1971-1973 have led to the turmoil we see today in legislation, politics, and public health.

The first half of the book looks at the mistakes made by the Justices, based on the case files, the oral arguments, and the Justices' papers. The second half of the book critically examines the unintended consequences of the abortion decisions in law, politics, and women's health.

Why do the abortion decisions remain so controversial after almost 40 years, despite more than 50,000,000 abortions, numerous presidential elections, and a complete turnover in the Justices? Why did such a sweeping decision--with such important consequences for public health, producing such prolonged political turmoil--come from the Supreme Court in 1973?

Answering those questions is the aim of this book. The controversy over the abortion decisions has hardly subsided, and the reasons why are to be found in the Justices' deliberations in 1971-1972 that resulted in the unprecedented decision they issued.

Discuss Abuse of Discretion on Twitter using hashtag #AbuseOfDiscretion.

Celebrated author Mary Eberstadt continues her ground-breaking examination of the legacy of the sexual revolution. The book's predecessor, Adam and Eve after the Pill (2012), dissected the revolution's microcosmic fallout via its empirical effects on the lives of men, women, and children. This follow-on book investigates the revolution's macrocosmic transformations in three spheres: society, politics, and Christianity. It also includes an analysis of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.

With unflinching logic, Eberstadt summarizes the toll on Western society of today's fractured homes, feral children, and social isolates. Empathetic yet precise, she connects the dots between shrinking, broken families and rising sexual confusion, seen most recently in transgenderism and related phenomena. The book also traces the dissolution of the home to signature developments in Western politics, especially the increase in acrimony, polarization, street violence, and identity politics. The result is an indictment of the turn taken by much of the world following the post-1960s embrace of contraception and the stigmatization of traditional morality.

The book's section on the revolution's infiltration of the churches is must-reading for anyone concerned about the fate of Western Christianity. In a moment when millions wonder whether the Catholic Church will retreat from age-old moral teachings, this book demands to be put at the center of discussion.

Adam and Eve after the Pill, Revisited is both an indispensable blueprint for today's emerging revisionism, and a manifesto for a more humane order to come.

What does the Catholic Church teach about racism? What should Catholics think about Critical Race Theory, which is currently being widely promoted in the name of antiracism

All One in Christ lucidly explains the Church's clear and consistent condemnation of racism, showing that the condemnation is not a recent development but deeply rooted in centuries of papal teaching and Scholastic theology.

This book also demonstrates that Critical Race Theory, far from being a remedy for racism, is, in fact, a new and insidious form of racism that cannot be reconciled with the social teaching of the Church and the call of Christ. Edward Feser exhorts Catholics to oppose Critical Race Theory--precisely because they are opposed to racial injustice. They must reaffirm that all human beings are rational creatures capable of knowledge and charity and redemption from sin through grace.

The Founding of the American Republic is on trial. Critics say it was a poison pill with a time-release formula; we are its victims. Its principles are responsible for the country's moral and social disintegration because they were based on the Enlightenment falsehood of radical individual autonomy. In this well-researched book, Robert Reilly declares: not guilty. To prove his case, he traces the lineage of the ideas that made the United States, and its ordered liberty, possible. These concepts were extraordinary when they first burst upon the ancient world: the Judaic oneness of God, who creates ex nihilo and imprints his image on man; the Greek rational order of the world based upon the Reason behind it; and the Christian arrival of that Reason (Logos) incarnate in Christ. These may seem a long way from the American Founding, but Reilly argues that they are, in fact, its bedrock. Combined, they mandated the exercise of both freedom and reason. These concepts were further developed by thinkers in the Middle Ages, who formulated the basic principles of constitutional rule. Why were they later rejected by those claiming the right to absolute rule, then reclaimed by the American Founders, only to be rejected again today? Reilly reveals the underlying drama: the conflict of might makes right versus right makes might. America's decline, he claims, is not to be discovered in the Founding principles, but in their disavowal.

Every day, millions of people fight about religion. Whether with friends, family, or on social media, we expend lots of energy, lots of sharp words, and lots of strong feelings. But very few know how to have a good religious argument a rational, respectful, and productive exchange of differing views.

Bishop Robert Barron, one of the leading Catholic figures in the world and among the most active on social media, has enjoyed thousands of fruitful religious arguments. In this book based on talks delivered at Facebook and Google, he explains why religion at its best opens up the searching mind, and how we all believer and unbeliever alike can share better discussions about God.

"Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light."
--Ephesians 5:14
The long-simmering crisis that grips our culture has exploded in recent years, leaving us divided and intransigent. Discourse seems futile when we are no longer a people with shared principles or even a shared understanding of reality. What seems obvious to one person is patently absurd to the next.

This collapse of meaning is not accidental. It has been plotted and documented for decades, and now presents in its current form as Woke ideology.

Awake, Not Woke unmasks this ideology by examining its history, major players, premises, and tactics, showing us that "Wokeness" at its core is an ideology of rupture. Indeed, it is an ideology with fundamentalist and even cult-like characteristics that is on a collision course with Christianity.

With a wit and clarity that both exposes the absurd and mourns the brokenness of our culture,
Noelle Mering provides answers to such questions as:

Why does tolerance seem to only go in one direction?

How does the ideology create enemies, eroding friendship across the sexes and races?

Why is violence the natural end of Woke ideology?

Why are the Woke considered blameless?

Why have politics become all-absorbing?

Why is the corruption of children a logical outgrowth of Woke principles?

How is the movement fundamentally a rejection of the Logos?

This is a spiritual battle, and it is not accidental. The architects of revolution have long known that the transformation of the West had to come by way of destabilizing the social, familial, and religious pieties of a citizenry.

But there is a road to restoration, and it begins with identifying and understanding the operating principles of the Woke movement. While the revolution is a counterfeit religion resulting in alienation and division, the One True Faith brings restoration. It is this restoration -- of the person, the family, and the Faith -- for which we all hunger and is the most fitting avenue toward a more harmonious and whole society

What are the best things in life?

Questions like that may boggle your mind. But they don't boggle Socrates. The indomitable old Greek brings his unending questions to Desperate State University. With him come the same mind-opening and spirit-stretching challenge that disrupted ancient Athens.

What is the purpose of education?

Why do we make love?

What good is money?

Can computers think like people?

Is there a difference between Capitalism and Communism?

What is the greatest good?

Is belief in God like belief in Santa Claus?

In twelve short, Socratic dialogues Peter Kreeft explodes contemporary values like success, power and pleasure. And he bursts the modern bubbles of agnosticism and subjectivism. He leaves you richer, wiser and more able to discern what the best things in life actually are.

If you follow politics or the news, America is a country of culture wars and great divides, a partisan place of red states and blue states, of us against them. From pundits to politicians it seems that anyone with an audience sees a polarized country - a country at war with itself.
In a radical departure from this conventional wisdom, Carl Anderson explores what the talking heads have missed: an overwhelming American consensus on many of the country's seemingly most divisive issues. If the debates are shrill in public, he says, there is a quiet consensus in private - one that America's institutions ignore at their peril. From health care, to the role of religion in America, to abortion, to the importance of traditional ethics in business and society, Anderson uses fresh polling data and keen insight in BEYOND A HOUSE DIVIDED to show that a surprising consensus has emerged despite these debates. He sheds light on what's been missing in the public and political debates of the last several years: the consensus that isn't hard to find if you know where to look.
For Anderson, allowing polar opposites to drive the discussion has made the resolution of contentious issues impossible. Instead, he says, we should look to the consensus among Americans as the best prospect for a beneficial conclusion.

The Once and Future Hegemon

In a world bristling with dangers, only one enemy poses a truly mortal challenge to the United States and the peaceful and prosperous world that America guarantees. That enemy is China, a country

-that invented totalitarianism thousands of years ago

-whose economic power rivals our own

-that believes its superior race and culture give it the right to universal deference

-that teaches its people to hate America for standing in the way of achieving its narcissistic "dream" of world domination

-that believes in its manifest destiny to usher in the World of Great Harmony

-which publishes maps showing the exact extent of the nuclear destruction it could rain down on the United States

Steven Mosher exposes the resurgent aspirations of the would-be hegemon--and the roots of China's will to domination in its five-thousand-year history of ruthless conquest and assimilation of other nations, brutal repression of its own people, and belligerence toward any civilization that challenges its claim to superiority.

The naïve idealism of our "China hands" has lulled America into a fool's dream of "engagement" with the People's Republic of China and its "peaceful evolution" toward democracy and freedom. Wishful thinking, says Mosher, has blinded us to the danger we face and left the world vulnerable to China's overweening ambitions.

Mosher knows China as few Westerners do. Having exposed as a visiting graduate student the monstrous practice of forced abortions, he became the target of the regime's crushing retaliation. His encyclopedic grasp of China's history and its present-day politics, his astute insights, and his bracing realism are the perfect antidote for our dangerous confusion about the Bully of Asia.

For Catholics, the question of evolution touches on all the most important topics: the nature of God and his work in the world, the nature of life, and the status of man in the universe. It is also a subject of perennial controversy and confusion. Some see the Darwinian theory of evolution as a major agent in discrediting the Church's doctrine on creation, undermining biblically-based morality and the concept of human exceptionalism. Others regard Darwinian theory as compatible with biblical faith and Catholic tradition. Has the Church itself "evolved"? Or are there certain truths that are permanent and irreplaceable?

Fr. Michael Chaberek is a Polish Dominican who has studied creation doctrine from Old and New Testament accounts to the Church Fathers, to the Medieval Scholastics (especially St. Thomas Aquinas), to the Vatican's internal and public papers of the 19th and 20th centuries--and on into our own times and the pronouncements of recent popes. His new book gathers all doctrinal statements on evolution and presents the history of the engagement of Catholicism with natural science since Darwin presented his theory in 1859. What he finds is a clear path that gradually became twisted and over-grown. His exploration of that path is both scholarly and engrossing.

"Finally, a book that tells the full story of Catholic reflections and Magisterial statements down through the centuries on issues of creation and evolution. From the meditations of the ancient Church Fathers to the statements of Popes Pelagius I and Leo XIII, there are many hidden treasures to be found here. Fr. Chaberek combines historical, philosophical, and theological scholarship in a book that is both comprehensive and engaging. This book will be an eye-opener for many, and will quickly become the standard and essential work on the subject."--ROBERT STACKPOLE, director, John Paul II Institute of Divine Mercy

"In Catholicism and Evolution, Fr. Michael Chaberek surveys perennial Catholic teaching, plumbs the depths of Catholic philosophy and historical theology, and analyzes the best scientific evidence to date. In the process, he shows that certain elements of Darwinian evolution are not only incompatible with Catholic belief, but largely lacking in evidence. He shows also that despite her clear historical teaching, the contemporary Church lacks an unambiguous statement of how Catholics should understand this question. I expect this to become the definitive book on Catholicism and evolution."--JAY W. RICHARDS, co-author of The Privileged Planet; editor of God and Evolution

"Darwin and his contemporaries thought the cell was a simple blob of jelly, protoplasm. Modern science has discovered the exact opposite, that astoundingly sophisticated technology undergirds life. Father Michael Chaberek probes the implications of this and other surprising developments in his erudite study of Catholicism's collision with Darwinism."--MICHAEL BEHE, author of Darwin's Black Box

"Catholicism and Evolution is a thorough exposition of the history of the debate over evolution, especially the theory's proponents and opponents within the Catholic Church. This book should be on the shelves of any concerned with this subject, or indeed any who would like to fully grasp the controversy's roots in the Church."--ANN GAUGER, Senior Research Scientist, Biologic Institute

"Fr. Chaberek has done Catholics and all Christians a great service by describing the progression of the present controversy over creation, intelligent design, and theistic evolution from the Bible and early days of Christianity until today. His book will open eyes."--BRUCE CHAPMAN, Founding Fellow, Discovery Institute

FR. MICHAEL CHABEREK O.P., S.T.D. is a member of the Polish Dominican Province, with a Doctorate in Fundamental Theology from Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw.

Nearly forty years ago, Ralph Martin's bestselling A Crisis of Truth exposed the damaging trends in Catholic teaching and preaching that, combined with attacks from secular society, threatened the mission and life of the Catholic Church. While much has been done to counter false teaching over the last four decades, today the Church faces even more insidious threatsƒƒ‚ƒƒ‚‚‚ƒƒ‚‚ƒ‚‚"ƒƒ‚ƒƒ‚‚‚ƒƒ‚‚ƒ‚‚€ƒƒ‚ƒƒ‚‚‚ƒƒ‚‚ƒ‚‚"from outside and within.

In A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward, Martin offers a detailed look at the growing hostility to the Catholic Church and its teaching. With copious evidence, Martin uncovers the forces working to undermine the Body of Christ and offers hope to those looking for clarity.

A Church in Crisis covers:

-polarization in the Church caused by ambiguous teachings

-initiatives that accommodate the culture without calling for conversion

-Vatican-sponsored partnerships with organizations that actively contradict the teaching of the Catholic Church

-and the recycling of theological errors long settled by V

Churches burned. Christians beheaded. Catholic communities driven underground. Governments forcing silence upon those who profess fidelity to the gospel.

These experiences are not confined to those of the early Church or to the missionaries and converts in far-off pagan lands centuries ago. The persecution of Christians is happening right now -- and it is closer to home than you may realize.

Throughout the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and even in the West, Christian communities are being targeted for their beliefs, whether through violence or public policy, and it's a trend that continues to escalate.

Moral theologian and news analyst Dr. Thomas Williams incisively juxtaposes the still relatively unknown global Christian persecution of today with that of previous epochs, describing it in its various forms and providing insight into what it means for the Church and for society at large. He also provides valuable advice on how these outrages can be remedied and what Christians can do to prepare for what is to come.

In 2020, according to the World Watch List published by Open Doors, 340 million Christians were facing "high levels of persecution." Dr. Williams masterfully reveals the state of affairs in countries that systematically persecute Christians, such as North Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, India, China, and Pakistan. In many cases, Christians are forced to flee these countries or face economic repercussions, forced conversions to Islam, imprisonment, violence, torture, and even death.

Dr. Williams also shows how Christian persecution has been with us since the beginning during the life of Jesus, from the time of His infancy to His death on the Cross. You'll learn what Jesus said in the Bible about coming persecutions, as well as about the trials and martyrdom that His apostles endured and the hardships of the early Christians, including the five virgins who are commemorated in the Roman Canon of the Holy Mass.

Dr. Williams also explores why Christians are persecuted. He reveals Voltaire's and Gibbon's thoughts on how Christians were vilified and how attempts to rewrite history--to blame Christian persecution on Christians themselves!--originally surfaced. Moreover, you will see how modern attacks against Christians spring from six primary sources: atheism, radical Islam, Hindu nationalism, totalitarianism, academia, and Satanism. In the words of St. John Paul II, "The Church has once again become a Church of martyrs."

Essential reading for anyone committed to holding fast to the Faith in the face of an uncertain future, the book also explains:

How Christians are globally experiencing white and red martyrdom due to their beliefs

Why some who preach tolerance are intolerant of Christians

Ways to avoid fatalism and resist the increased persecutions of Christians

How to assist, through practical and spiritual means, those who are attacked

How examples and words of the saints can inspire you to grow in virtue and remain steadfast

Whether Coronovirus still threatens you, your friends, and your family or has already harmed someone you love, these pages will ease your fears, heal your wounds, quench your sorrow, and bring you the consolation God provides to all who seek Him in pestilential times like these ‚"‚€‚" times that are, in fact, not foreign to our ancient Faith.

For in Christianity's 2,000-year history, cruel persecutions and sudden, uncontrollable plagues like COVID-19 have time and again struck mankind, challenging Christians to rise up spiritually against evils that cannot immediately be conquered materially.

Now our turn has come . . . along with the help we need to succeed. Here celebrated Catholic author and media host Teresa Tomeo has drawn forth from Scripture, the lives of the saints, and contemporary sources a healing balm for souls ‚"‚€‚" believers and unbelievers alike ‚"‚€‚" who have been shaken by the frightening evils thrust upon us by this coronavirus.