Government’s Unintended Consequences
The official summary of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) “does not address every detail of each [...]
Catholicism: Can the Decline Be Reversed?
That the Catholic Church has been losing numbers for decades has been well established. Why the loss has occurred, however, [...]
Restoring Reason in American Culture, Part 2
In a recent essay, I explained how the social chaos being experienced in the U.S. today can be traced to [...]
Restoring Reason in American Culture
I recently discussed why social chaos is spreading across the U.S. The answer, I argued, is that the movement to [...]
Understanding Our Growing Social Chaos
An anonymous commentary made the rounds of the Internet before it vanished. It pointed out a number of absurdities in [...]
The Bishops’ Flawed View of Racial Problems
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops and individual dioceses were quick to respond to the murder of George Floyd and [...]
Disrespect for Law and Order
Civilizations are said to decline from within by losing their commitment to the value structures that raised them to prominence. [...]
Advice to a Disenchanted Catholic
A reader recently offered this (paraphrased) comment on an essay of mine: “Your essay and others like it leave me [...]
The Gift of Appreciation
I recently wrote about the consequences of the Covid19 crisis—both the self-sacrificing good works it prompted and, in sharp contrast, [...]
Crises Have Consequences
Covid-19 came to America and the rest of the world without warning and changed our lives in ways never imagined [...]
The Growing Threat of Socialism
Friedrich von Hayek Friedrich von Hayek (1899-1992) was a Hungarian Economist, Philosopher, and Nobel Prize winner [...]
Surviving the Nightmare
We wake up each morning thinking, “What a horrible dream I had—bats, monkeys, lizards, people in masks and gloves standing [...]
A Glaring Occasion of Sin
A good friend sent me a statement charging Fox News with “inexcusably” violating “elementary canons of journalism” in its handling [...]
Reflections While Staying Home
It was Sunday evening, March 29, 2020, and I had just watched episode 224 of McLeod’s Daughters, which ran for eight [...]
Toilet Paper and the Human Intellect, Part 2
Rodin's The Thinker Part 1 of this essay began by noting the strange but amusing behavior of many [...]
Toilet Paper and the Human Intellect
Rodin's The Thinker [...]
The Ultimate Ethnic Joke
We’ve all heard enough ethnic jokes to know that they can be hurtful because they are usually based on stereotypes—that [...]
Making Lent Meaningful
Lent is a time for deepening our faith and growing closer to God. Traditionally, for Catholics and many other Christians, [...]
Tribute to “The Little Poor One,” St. Francis of Assisi
St. Francis of Assisi, Stained Glass Window. Slovenia Many have believed that St. Francis of Assisi lived [...]
Memo to Those Who Still Hate Trump
A friend recently said that she didn’t vote for Donald Trump in 2016 because of the offensive statements he had [...]
The Media Are Ignoring This Book
The only way to cast an informed vote for political candidates is to become familiar with their qualifications for office. [...]
Renewing Catholic Respect for Reason
Rodin's The Thinker I recently noted that though the Catholic Church was once Reason’s greatest champion, in recent [...]
Footnote to the Impeachment Effort
Two fundamental errors in logic have been evident in the movement to drive President Trump from office. One is the [...]
The Mother of All Sins
Théodore Géricault, Portrait of Envious Woman It is often said that the father of all sins is [...]
The Catholic View of Faith and Reason
For centuries many people have considered faith and reason mutually exclusive rather than complementary. This notion has led many non-religious [...]
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.