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Rod Dreher

A Ukrainian Catholic priest — Eastern Rite Catholics can have married priests — at home with his family. Excerpt: Ukrainian priests, while reluctant to criticize Pope Benedict XVI over his unyielding stance on the celibacy requirement, said permitting them to raise families enriched their ability to tend to parishioners’ needs. “It is important when a…

I’m on my way to Washington now to get ready for the 2010 Templeton Prize winner announcement on Thursday. I can’t reveal the name of this year’s winner, but I can tell you the selection will cause a certain amount of controversy. Watch this blog for more. Here’s the website for the Templeton Prize, where…

To the young mother sitting across from me on the Acela: Look, I know it’s tough to deal with a screaming toddler. We’ve all been there. Traveling with little ones can be really hard. I am pleased to be patient — to a point. If you would make some good-faith effort to calm the squalling…

Phillip Blond played to a packed house at Villanova last night. In the audience was our longtime blog friend Franklin Evans, who turned me into a newt, then joshingly relented. A good time was had by all, I think. Having listened to Phillip speak at length twice about his ideas, I’d like to say a…

From a NYT story about how the Tories are having trouble relating to the common man: Many old-time Tories are leaving Parliament this year, including the unrepentantly first-class-loving Sir Nicholas. But there are more waiting in the wings. Last year, worried about how an impeccably pedigreed Tory candidate named Annunziata Rees-Mogg would go over with…

In “The Quantum and the Lotus,” a book-length dialogue between astrophysicist Trinh Xuan Thuan (born a Buddhist), and former scientist Matthieu Ricard, who left the Pasteur Institute to become a Tibetan Buddhist monk, Ricard writes of why he abandoned his scientific career for the monastery. He says, “I followed where my passions led, while trying…

The final essay in Roger Scruton’s “Gentle Regrets” is a magnificent meditation called “Regaining My Religion.” In it, Scruton talks about why he returned to the faith (he’s an Anglican), and what our secular age means. “The loss of faith may begin as an intellectual loss. But it does not end there,” he writes. And…

Here’s a blurry Facebook photo (clearer version here) of my sister Ruthie and her husband Mike at last week’s St. Patrick’s Day parade in St. Francisville. This is the first time I’ve seen her since her hair fell out and her face swelled from the chemo — but her smile is still there, brighter than…

This is not (or rather, no longer) a political blog. But what appears in the comboxes on Jim Antle’s AmSpec story about pro-life Democrats and the health care compromise is not about politics at all. It’s about pathology, the decline in public morals, and the challenge to civil society and civil discourse in this toxic…

I don’t have a strong opinion about the health care debate, which has now been resolved in the Democrats’ favor. Sorry. I think we have a lousy system now, but I have serious doubts about this reform, especially coming as the government plunges headlong into insolvency. I wish to associate myself with this view of…
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