Rev. Robert Sirico defends priesthood in The Atlantic

Today The Atlantic has published a response essay from Fr. Robert Sirico to James Carroll’s call for the abolition of the priesthood, the magazine’s cover story this month: James Carroll, the author of this month’s Atlantic’s cover story, “Abolish the Priesthood,” is famous in certain Catholic circles for his bitter denunciations of the Church. Continue Reading...

Should credit-card interest be capped at 15%?

Democratic presidential primary contender Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have unveiled a plan to cap credit-card interest rates at 15%: Under the “Loan Shark Prevention Act,” the annual percentage rate applicable to any extension of credit would not be allowed surpass 15% on “unpaid balances, inclusive of all finance charges” or “the maximum rate permitted by the laws of the State in which the consumer resides.” Continue Reading...

The dangers of Catholic anti-liberalism

Korey D. Maas, associate professor of history at Hillsdale College, has written a timely warning to American Catholics at Public Discourse titled, ‘The Coming Anti-Catholicism.’ Maas begins his essay with a recounting of the early history of American anti-Catholicism, its mitigation in the 1960s, and its troubling resurgence in recent years: The combined effects of Camelot and the Council were to make political anti-Catholicism gauche almost overnight. Continue Reading...