South Korea has the lowest fertility rate in the world. Its population is (optimistically) projected to shrink by over two thirds over the next 100 years. If current fertility rates persist, every hundred South Koreans today will have only six great-grandchildren between them.

After being out of town for several days doing back-to-back speaking events, I arrived home exhausted. Needing sleep, I lay down on my bed for a nap. The next thing I knew, my wife was shaking me awake, saying something urgent about our five-year-old daughter, Rebecca. “What?” I asked groggily. “What’s going on?” “We can’t find Rebecca!” Nancy said, in a tone...

Twenty years ago, I published a small book, The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God. It enjoyed a fair sale, got translated into French, Spanish, Polish, Italian, Portuguese, and Hungarian, and was named a Foreign Affairs Bestseller. In it, I argued that Europe was experiencing a crisis of “civilizational morale,” evident in sclerotic governmental bureaucracies...

Have you ever met someone and immediately liked them? Why such a good first impression? Afterward you realized: She was interested in you. She genuinely liked hearing about the bits and pieces of who you are. Your mother-in-law believes your parenting could use some adjustment. She comments and corrects, each time you listen slower and argue faster...

A rise in executions in the United States in 2025 occurred alongside “shifting public opinion” against the death penalty, offering anti-death-penalty advocates a hopeful sign going into 2026 even amid high levels of capital punishment. The Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit group that tracks and catalogs executions in the United States...

It takes a lot of money to run a parish or diocese. Personnel, property, and insurance costs quickly add up, no matter where you live. But few dioceses have a budget line for snowmobiles and bush plane flights, or operating costs for remote parishes that cannot be accessed by road. The Diocese of Fairbanks has that. Spanning the northern 409,849 square miles of Alaska...

The collect for today’s feast prays, “O God, who were pleased to give us the example of the Holy Family, graciously grant that we may imitate them.” Now, that’s a tall order. After all, the Holy Family was exceptional. Inimitable, one might say. Joseph and Mary were indeed married. But their marriage was unlike any other...

January 1 is the Octave Day of Christmas, eight days after the celebration of the Nativity of Our Lord, a second Christmas Solemnity, Christmas Day II. But it isn’t called that. Instead it is the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God. That fact alone shows the singularity of Mary. The Octave of Easter Sunday is Easter Sunday II, a second day to celebrate what Jesus did...

Every now and then, someone sends me a URL pointing to some kind of abomination with a butchered movie running somewhere on basic cable or hidden deep inside the bowels of a streaming service website. It’s easy to mutter, “We live in a sinful, fallen world.” Frankly, it’s amazing that bored people handling off-hour broadcasts don’t fall asleep at key switches more often...

Pope Leo XIV used the Vatican’s final general audience of 2025 on Wednesday to invite Catholics to look back on the past year with gratitude and repentance, and to place what lies ahead in God’s hands. In St. Peter’s Square on Dec. 31, the pope said 2025 brought both joy and sorrow...