Even before the pandemic, from 2007 to 2018, the rate of suicide among people aged 10 to 24 rose nearly 60 percent. The stress and social isolation brought about by COVID-19 and the societal response to it increased the risk ...
Read MoreAuthor Archives: Kevin Schmiesing
About Kevin Schmiesing
Kevin Schmiesing is director of research at the Freedom and Virtue Institute and a research associate at the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life. He has published many books and articles in the fields of Christian social thought and religious and economic history and has served as executive editor of the Journal of Markets & Morality and the Catholic Social Science Review. He talks about Church history as a regular guest on the EWTN global Catholic radio network. He is a native of Ohio, where he currently resides with his wife and children.
Few of us are in positions to make decisions about whether nations go to war, but all of us have the opportunity to promote peace among our own family and friends. We shouldn’t let a focus on purportedly world-changing crusades ...
Read MoreThe repercussions of failing to develop positive personal capacities during children’s formative period are wide-ranging and monumental. Employers have been complaining for years about the difficulty of finding qualified candidates—the problem being for the most part not the lack of ...
Read MoreThus the culture of affirmation—in which self-esteem was the primary value and injuring someone’s sense of self-worth the cardinal sin—has given rise to the culture of cancellation, where it is not only permissible but mandatory, once a person has fallen ...
Read MoreOne who pursues bodily pleasure “at the cost of everything else” does not have control of his passions; his reason is not in the driver’s seat. Individual happiness and fulfillment is one casualty of self-indulgence, but the common good—societal wellbeing—is ...
Read MoreThe self-imposition of order, the founders understood, was achieved by the exercise of self-control, which was the bridling of passion by reason. Self-control was a virtue that required effort and cultivation. And virtue, they further understood, was most commonly imbued ...
Read MoreThe polarization of American politics and culture and the breakdown of civil discourse in favor of polemics and violence have been much discussed. Whether these problems are worse, much worse, or not worse than the norm in American history remains ...
Read MoreRecognizing risk and integrating it into life is one facet of the maturation process. A reckless disregard for danger is not healthy, nor is a desperate obsession with avoiding it. Prudent people of different backgrounds and personalities will display different ...
Read MoreWhat is true at the personal level is also true at the societal level. Like individuals, cultures need reform. The cycle of corruption and reform is inherent in the human experience. In the history of Western religion, the “Reformation” and ...
Read MoreThe record of the American education system in meeting the diverse needs of this diverse clientele has been mixed. In the early days of the nation, those who had the means to pay enjoyed a variety of educational options, from ...
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