Weekly Summary: 10/25/25
The week in review, through the eyes of a veteran Catholic journalist
My week has been relatively quiet— although you won’t want to miss the blockbuster at the end of this post. Some beautiful weather, travel, and a grandson’s 2nd birthday threw me off my regular schedule. Still I managed:
“About 2-3 times a day, on average, someone asks me what I expect from Pope Leo.” That’s how I began my first Note of the week. I don’t have my own satisfactory answer to the question yet— still weighing the evidence— but I thought Mark Nowakowski had a good perspective.
Next I was pleasantly surprised that the Wall Street Journal has finally noticed the rampant fraud in the surrogate parenthood industry. Gee: an industry that’s wildly profitable, totally unregulated, and just by the way thoroughly immoral. Who’d have thunk that crooks might be involved?
Then I was back to the enigmatic Pope Leo, this time finding a lot of food for thought in a review of two new books about the new Pontiff, by Father Raymond de Souza, who— like me— thinks that we’ll need to wait longer to form clear opinions.
The sneak previews of my novel continued this week, with the release of Chapter 7. But those sneal previews are now over, because— my personal big news for the week— Ghost Runner is now available, at a discounted “preorder” price.
On the CatholicCulture site I commented on a troubling development among the Catholic clergy in the US: Priests don’t have confidence in their bishops. That problem, I suggest, points to a crisis of pastoral leadership, and a tendency to see the bishop’s role as administrative rather than fatherly.
And I suppose everyone who does online commentary was at least tempted to post a comical comment on the heist at the Louvre. I couldn’t resist.
In this week’s session of the Just War seminar, I discuss the “principle of double effect,” which is so often used (abused) to suggest that, in effect, the ends justify the means, Properly understood, the principle— derived from St. Thomas Aquinas— retains the fundamental Christian principle that an intentional sin is always a sin.
Last but definitely not least: Helen Andrews drew a firestorm of criticism for her article, The Great Feminization. It’s considered heresy to suggest (as she suggested) that both men and woman are uncomfortable when women take over professional leadership. A controversial thesis? For sure. But Leila wants to go further, and I’m right there with her. Feminism has disastrous results across the board. And by the way, traditional Catholic social teaching would put things back in the proper perspective— if Catholic leaders had the courage to proclaim it. Don’t miss this episode of the Home Front podcast.