SPIRITED THINKING SINCE 1888
Ken Craycraft

How Bob Dylan speaks to Catholics
November 15, 2021
After his conversion in 1844, American journalist Orestes Brownson became one of the most influential Catholic public intellectuals of his time, even while maintaining an ongoing conversation with such literary luminaries as Walt Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson. In a famous 1868 essay, Nature and Grace, Brownson suggested that the “Catholic faith is the reconciler
Challenges to the Texas Heartbeat Act May Yield Different Results
November 04, 2021
On 1st November, the United States Supreme Court heard oral argument on two challenges to the Heartbeat Act, a Texas law that bans abortion after the detection of a foetal heartbeat, usually at about 6 weeks of gestation. The cases, Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson and United States v. Texas, were brought by abortionists and
Dave Chappelle and the TERF Wars
October 20, 2021
Chappelle says things that are not only true, but sensitive and insightful.
The Sickening “Women’s Health Protection Act” Compels Abortion
October 05, 2021
Catholic President Joe Biden has indicated that he will sign this noxious bill into law.
The Texas Heartbeat Bill and Abortion Politics in the U.S.
September 15, 2021
It is too soon for abortion opponents to celebrate a complete victory in Texas
Belief and Unbelief on the Margins of Greeneland
September 02, 2021
It is only the fundamentalist who never struggles with questions of faith, and it is questionable whether that is really faith, rather than ideology.
An English Court Rules, a Swedish Hospital Listens, Halts Dangerous Gender Dysphoria Treatments
July 11, 2021
A hospital famous for its treatment of gender dysphoria has stopped treatments that try to change children’s bodies from one sex to another. And the United Kingdom High Court of Justice is one reason it did so. The court found that the evidence that the treatment worked is “poor” at best and “non-existent” at worst.
The Grand Inquisitor and Independence Day: A Catholic Question About the 4th of July
July 02, 2021
Independence Day began as a commemoration of the North American British Colonies’ declaration of their independence from Great Britain in 1776. It has become a cypher for a kind of freedom markedly different from the mere enjoyment of citizens’ right “to alter or to abolish” their existing government and “to institute new government.” It seems more
The Catholic Problem With Pride Month
June 30, 2021
How does one fulfill the gospel mandate to join the suffering of a person who doesn’t think she’s suffering? That’s a question Pride Month, now ending, raises for Catholics. The month proclaims pride not just in an identity, but in behaviors. It’s a question we have to answer. We are called to accompany and console
If the Eucharist isn’t Political, to Hell with It
June 22, 2021
St. Ambrose barring Emperor Theodosius from Milan’s cathedral, by Anthony van Dyck, c.1619 (Public Domain)   The “Statement of Principles” that about sixty Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives released on June 18, criticizing the U.S. Bishops for being, well, shepherds of their flock, is a model of disingenuous prevarication. The Statement claims
U.S. Abortion Law is About to Get Murkier
June 03, 2021
Group photo of the Justices at the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC on April 23, 2021. (ERIN SCHAFF/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)   In May 2021, the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear yet another case testing the limits of a State’s ability to regulate abortion under Roe v. Wade, the 1973 precedent that
I Was So Much Older Then
May 24, 2021
Bob Dylan during a press interview28th April 1965. (Photo by Evening Standard/Getty Images) Bob Dylan turns 80 Fifty-five years ago 16 May1966, Bob Dylan released his most critically acclaimed album ever, Blonde on Blonde, the third album in fourteen frenetic months of astonishing artistic creativity. With Bringing It All Back Home (March 1965) and Highway
The Pope missed a golden opportunity at his meeting with Joe Biden
October 30, 2021
Pope Francis failed to show any pastoral responsibility at his meeting with the US President
Travelling together?
October 22, 2021
As the two-year Synod on Synodality gets under way, its vague objectives 
cast a shadow over a Church striving for universality
Standing firm and holding fast
August 26, 2021
The wisdom of Evelyn Waugh provides theological sustenance in these fractious times
Centesimus Annus After 30 Years
May 04, 2021
Like the sabbath, the economy is at the service of the human person, not vice versa. Thus, the measure of a moral economy is the development of the full human person.
The Politics of the Passion
March 30, 2021
Pilate came to flex imperial muscle. With a little shock and awe, he came to Jerusalem to remind the Jews that their primary identification was as Roman subjects.
Obituary: Fr Paul Mankowski, fighter, scholar and friend
September 29, 2020
Fr Paul Mankowski SJ, who has died at the age of 66, was a Jesuit priest of immense erudition. A linguist and literary critic, and an extraordinarily insightful analyst of the ills besetting the Church in his time, Fr Mankowski was also an inveterate controversialist who combined Midwestern frankness with his keen intellect and profound
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