Have you read Trump’s remarkable executive order, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”? It’s brilliant! Leila and I talk about that statement, and some of the other news in the whirlwind first days of the new Trump administration, on this week’s Home Front podcast. Join us!

Should Biden be excommunicated for joining the Freemasons? Set that question aside— it’s complicated— and ask another instead: The reason for the Church’s ban on Masonry is that Masonic ideology is “irreconcilable with the doctrine of the Church.” Couldn’t the same be said today about the Democratic Party?

"Our good bishops are in a bind; the bad ones do not care," writes Anthony Esolen for Crisis. "The wickedness of a previous generation of bishops, not wholly leached away, has robbed good bishops of the honor they deserve." Esolen has some harsh but accurate observations about the misdeeds of many bishops, and some sound advice on how the "good bishops" can recover their honor.

@ProfADWLoyNO @JDVance Right. (And I think that's what he's doing.) Look at it this way: If the largest part of the US bishops' conference (in terms of staff and funding) is devoted to refugee services, it's easy to slip into the belief that this is the most important thing the bishops do.

Politicians today can take aim at the American bishops without fear of the political fallout. The politicians know that. But do the bishops? Does the Vatican?

Government contractors comply with government policies, and government policies change with the political winds. Evangelical counsels do not.

Trump and Vance have strong public support, particularly within their own base, and they know it. The bishops don’t have that kind of support, and apparently they don’t know it.

RT @TPCarney: This is as wrong as it gets. Universal daycare is not a family support, it’s a work subsidy. It’s a corporatist-workist perv…

Two major points on our Home Front podcast this week: 1- If it was a “prayer service,” Bishop Budde should have been talking to God, not to Trump. But many prelates slip up at these events. At the Inauguration, Cardinal Dolan didn’t mention the name of Jesus; Rev. Graham did. 2- Reflections on the ERA— and on why the most influential woman in American political history is scorned by feminists. (Spoiler: because she beat them at their own game.)

Ask yourself: Who is the most influential woman in American political history? There is only one intelligent answer to that question. So why don’t young American women even know her name?

One more beautiful tribute to the incomparable Fr Paul Mankowski. As I hear from more and more people whose lives he touched, I'm anxious to make others aware of "the most influential Catholic you've never heard of."

RT @amywelborn2: This EO on sex and gender is...amazing. Precise, clear, on-target and deeply aware of potential loopholes and the ways gen…

@MichaelPOrsi2 Yes, and I knew he would-- just as I knew Cardinal Dolan wouldn't.

RT @MichaelPOrsi2: Franklin Graham did!

Will someone pul-eeze explain to me why, when a Catholic prelate gives the invocation at a public event, he never mentions the name of the Lord Jesus Christ?

Have you ever wondered WHY secular society wants to end the Christmas celebration so promptly on December 26? Maybe because people aren’t ready to cope with the reality of the Incarnation? And then: Zuckerberg says he won’t let the “fact-checkers” censor viewpoints any more. That’s nice, but doesn’t explain— or excuse— why it happened for so long, with such damaging results. This in more on this week’s Home Front podcast.

Here's a very interesting essay that cites my book The Faithful Departed, but looks at the question from an entirely different angle.

If you’re looking for a biography of Pope Francis AS POPE, his newly published autobiography is not the answer.

The sex-abuse scandal was not— is not— a crisis imposed on the Catholic Church, brought on by external forces. It is a self-inflicted wound.