In the face of these unmistakable signs of cultural, even civilizational, decay, the Church has its work cut out for it.

It is tragic that this abandonment of theological sanity and pastoral responsibility coincides with the 60th anniversary of the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, in which German bishops and theologians (including the future Pope Benedict XVI) played significant roles.

The bishops speak in the public square on a host of issues, and they do so with the voice of public reason, not as “culture-warriors” (another silly epithet applied to them by bears of little brain).

Surveys indicate that reading books is dropping precipitously across all age groups. This is a tragedy in itself; it’s also a social disaster, as a post-literate society risks becoming a post-rational society. All the more reason, then, to consider giving books for Christmas: books that entertain, inform, and open new horizons of understanding.

American theologian and author George Weigel was honored Nov. 30 with the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church’s Blessed Omelyan Kovch Award at the National Opera House in Lviv, Ukraine.

The U.S. government released a multi-point “peace plan” that should cause anyone familiar with the history of the late 1930s to recoil in disgust and anger.

The deterioration of our games is part and parcel of the deterioration of our culture. And as politics is downstream from culture, end-zone ridiculousness and similar self-aggrandizing debaucheries in other forms of entertainment have inevitably leaked into politics like a poison.

The irony of Newman being given this rare honor just now lies in the fact that the unity of the Church is threatened by recrudescent ultramontanism: not the old, 19th-century reactionary model, but a new hybrid combining Catholic progressivism in the realm of ideas with liberal authoritarianism in Church governance.

Antisemitism is a malignancy in society. Throughout modern political history, rising antisemitism has been an unmistakable marker of cultural decay.

This descent into emotivism and sentimentality has profound consequences for society as well as for individuals.