Reflections on Lent
Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, when the sign of the cross is made with ashes on our foreheads [...]
How to End America’s Decline
By now most Americans understand that the country is not only in decline, but that the situation is worsening. Economic, [...]
Catholicism’s Unfortunate Embrace of Social Justice
Although the term "justice" has been in use for thousands of years, "social justice" was coined in the late 1800s [...]
American Catholics and Social Justice, Revisited
“Social justice” is at the center of most political activism in contemporary America. It has provided arguments for the expansion [...]
Sermons to Reverse America’s Decline, Part 2
The decline of America has been underway for decades and has dramatically increased in recent years. Signs of it are [...]
Sermons to Reverse America’s Decline
I recently wrote that for many decades politicians have used "Separation of Church and State" to intimidate the clergy to [...]
Can the Church Help Restore America’s Values?
In a recent essay I explained that America's intellectual and moral decline can be reversed by restoring the ideas and [...]
Retracing the Steps in America’s Decline
The decline of America is not a new phenomenon, but in recent years it has become clearer. Though its most [...]
The Workings of the Holy Spirit
Catholics and other Christians know that the Holy Spirit, together with the Father and the Son, constitute the Trinity called [...]
Why Defrocking Is Not the Answer
I have written before concerning Pope Francis' contempt for conservative Catholics. One such example of that contempt was his statement [...]
Trump and Ramaswamy?
Shortly after the third Republican presidential debate, Donald Trump announced that he was considering asking Tucker Carlson to be his [...]
What Do We Really Know?
Many years ago, when I was a college sophomore majoring in Sociology, I took a course in Criminology. The professor [...]
The Catholic Hierarchy and the Mideast Conflict
"The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does [...]
The Oldest and Strangest Hatred
The hatred of Jews is manifest once again in the massacre of hundreds of Israelis, including unborn children slashed from [...]
Trump or Biden? A Not So Difficult Choice
The early phases of the 2024 Presidential campaign are well underway and barring unforeseen events, the final faceoff will be [...]
Reflecting on the Middle East Slaughter
Most of us are still struggling to grasp the enormity of the recent attacks on Israel by Hamas. We heard [...]
Will the Hierarchy Embrace This Wise Counsel?
The four-year Synod of the Catholic Church is nearing completion. It has been described as a "Journey" that is "both [...]
Pope Francis’ View of Conservative Catholics
In a conversation with Jesuit priests and students in Portugal on August 28, 2023, Pope Francis answered a number of [...]
The Contemporary Fashion of Loving Ourselves
I recently heard a sermon in my parish that encouraged parishioners to love themselves. It was not the first time [...]
Curiosity’s Role in Saving America
In a recent essay titled "Our Urgent Need to Examine Ideas" I noted that in this age of constant, rapid, [...]
An Example that Inspires Hope
In the early 1902s Anthony, a young Italian immigrant to the United States, was being screened at New York's Ellis [...]
Our Urgent Need to Examine Ideas
In a recent essay I noted that critical thinking is a more reliable guide to behavior than emotion, provided it [...]
When “Eyes Do Not See, Nor Ears Hear”
Cardinal Dolan began a June 2023 essay by lamenting that "religious freedom—our first and most cherished liberty—has wrongly come to [...]
Valuing God’s Incomparable Gift, the Human Mind
Rodin's The Thinker The Bible tells us that God created humans in his "image and likeness." What does [...]
The Decline of Emotional Control
A biological male wins the Miss Netherlands title. Whistle-blowers are maligned for reporting crimes. An employer fires his employee for [...]
Author Vincent Ryan Ruggiero
Since retiring from teaching, I have continued my work in promoting sound thinking in education and in the general culture. More specifically, I have kept refining my textbooks, four of which have been continuously in print for an average of 33 years. I have also continued to write books for the general public, the latest of which is Corrupted Culture: Rediscovering America’s Enduring Principles, Values, and Common Sense, and I write a weekly column for an online journal.