Perspective
Be fruitful and multiply
Last year, French President Emmanuel Macron, speaking at a Gates Foundation event in New York, suggested that no well-educated woman would have a large family. “Present me the woman who […]
Perspective
Prayers for the sick
There is an old New Yorker cartoon that shows an angel bringing God a stack of petitions about wars, natural disasters and other calamities. God waves him off with a […]
Perspective
Holy days of obligation
We have begun the four-and-a-half-month span — between the solemnities of the Assumption (Aug. 15) and Mary, Mother of God (Jan. 1) — into which all our holy days of […]
Perspective
Summer at the lake
Chemists and economists speak of equilibrium conditions, where the concentrations of reactants and products, or supply and demand, are in balance. If you have a bottle of soda water with […]
Perspective
Suppose we let the people decide
In May, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt that states have sovereign immunity from suits brought by individuals in the courts of another […]
Perspective
Look at this
I am so proud of our students. This month the student government association, the body that represents our undergraduates, passed a resolution asking the university to prohibit access through the […]
Perspective
Not so fast
I probably shouldn’t admit this in front of my grandchildren, but I am a fan of McDonald’s fish sandwiches. When I was a young lawyer in San Francisco, my firm’s […]
Perspective
Jim Crow and the Klansman
By now I think almost everyone has seen the photograph from Gov. Ralph Northam’s yearbook — a man in blackface standing next to a hooded Klansman. The figure on the […]
Perspective
One man’s meat
One of our girls gave me a book for Christmas, “One Man’s Meat,” by E.B. White. We agreed to start a little book club, just the two of us — […]
Perspective
Holy Mother Church
I’ve been having some trouble lately with the Nicene Creed. The First Council of Constantinople in 381 added the sentence, “I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.” […]
Perspective
Say an Ave there for me
The vote in Ireland in the spring to take away constitutional protection for the unborn came as an unhappy surprise to Irish Catholics in the United States. It was a […]
Perspective
Praying with children
Next month, Pope Francis will host a synod of bishops on the theme of “Young people, faith and vocational discernment.” This may seem uncomfortable, even incongruous, given the crisis the […]