Canonizing Joe Biden
Canonizing Joe Biden? I know my Republican friends will think this is a misprint. A week or so ago I [...]
Anatomy of a Bizarre Election
The 2020 election results won't be final until the ballot challenges and court cases are decided, and the process could [...]
Pope Francis and Same-Sex Unions
Background Note: I recently explained how popes have strived to preserve doctrinal continuity by supporting their predecessors’ pronouncements. I noted, as well, [...]
Pope Francis’ Curious Encyclical, Part 2
Summary of Part 1: In Rerum Novarum (1891) Pope Leo XIII wrote: “The first and most fundamental principle . . . if [...]
Pope Francis’ Curious Encyclical
Pope Francis’ latest encyclical, Fratelli Tutti (Brothers All) offers an odd combination of timely and profound insights, flawed judgment, and an [...]
Jesuits Embarrassing Jesuits
St. Ignatius of Loyola There are fourteen Jesuit priests on the editorial board of America Magazine, each with [...]
Enhancing Biden’s Image With Catholics
For many decades, Democrats have been able to count on the votes of a majority of Catholic voters, mainly because [...]
Let Catholic Voters Beware
The article is titled Trump or Biden? What’s a Catholic voter to do? and the author is Thomas Reese, an accomplished [...]
The Validity of Baptism
Was your baptism valid? The question is not an idle one, as Father Matthew Hood, a young priest in the [...]
Do Catholics Really Need Shorter Sermons?
I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone applied the fast food concept to religion. Well, that [...]
Restoring Civil Discourse
Civil discourse is defined as “a conversation intended to exchange ideas for the purpose of advancing the participants’ pursuit of [...]
Mayhem’s Urgent Message
George Floyd died in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020 with a policeman’s knee on his neck. The media showed the [...]
Six Sermons I’d Like to Hear
In Catholicism the Liturgy of the Eucharist has been more central to the Mass than the Liturgy of the Word. [...]
Amid Pain and Tragedy, A Blessing
We are all acutely aware of the terrible harm done by the Coronavirus Pandemic to virtually every American—economically, educationally, emotionally, [...]
Insights from G. K. Chesterton
Given that Gilbert Keith Chesterton (GKC) died in 1936, some readers may be inclined to ask, “How could his views [...]
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 [...]
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.