Stephen White Journalist Profile

Articles

On Hornets and Hope

1 month ago | eppc.org | Francis X. Maier |Nathanael Blake |Stephen White

Published March 6, 2025 These remarks were delivered at Portsmouth Abbey’s Providence symposium on March 6, 2025Our theme today is “pilgrims of hope,” and I promise to talk about that. But I need to start with a caveat. When I sat down to draft these comments, I discovered, rather awkwardly, that all of my heroes are pessimists.
Pilgrims of Hope

Jan 8, 2025 | thecatholicthing.org | Stephen White

A new year is a time of optimism and hope, a time for a fresh start. For many people, the beginning of a new year is a time for making resolutions. Usually, these are resolutions of self-improvement, even self-denial. We resolve to eat better, exercise more, shed a few pounds, spend more time with family, finally clear out the inbox, travel more, and the like. These resolutions, of course, invariably stem from an awareness that something about how we have been living is not quite right.
The New World and Thanksgiving

Nov 28, 2024 | thecatholicthing.org | Stephen White

Thanksgiving is the quintessential American holiday. No other holiday captures so well the history, temperament, and aspirations of this nation. The distinctive traditions of Christmas, for example – the tree, the carols, Santa Claus – are decidedly, and charmingly, Old World traditions. The Fourth of July is a riot of fireworks and barbecues and captures well the rebellious spirit that has always marked the American character.
Before there was 4B

Nov 17, 2024 | eppc.org | Carrie Gress |Henry Olsen |Stephen White |Carl R. Trueman

Published November 17, 2024 Washington Examiner Female fertility is back in the news, with Vice President Kamala Harris’s failed presidential hopes. In protest to President-elect Donald Trump’s win, faithful Harris followers are swearing off four things: sex, dating, marriage, and children.
On the Giving and Receiving of Honor, by Stephen P. White

Nov 15, 2024 | brownpelicanla.com | Stephen White

Marco Rubio, Twice a Revert to Catholicism, to Become the Nation’s Top Diplomat, by Peter Laffin Devout Catholic Worker Fired for Not Getting COVID Shot Wins Over $12M in Religious Discrimination Suit, by Nicholas McEntyre By Stephen P. White, The Catholic Thing, November 14, 2024Stephen P. White is executive director of The Catholic Project at The Catholic University of America and a fellow in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
On the Giving and Receiving of Honor

Nov 14, 2024 | eppc.org | Stephen White |Edward Whelan |George Weigel |Francis X. Maier

Published November 14, 2024 The Catholic Thing No one esteems a man for having lived an easy life. No one thinks more of a man for never having faced hardship, trials, or want. We pray that we might be spared such trials ourselves. We are grateful when those we love are spared such sufferings. But we do not admire them for it.
On the Giving and Receiving of Honor

Nov 14, 2024 | thecatholicthing.org | Stephen White

No one esteems a man for having lived an easy life. No one thinks more of a man for never having faced hardship, trials, or want. We pray that we might be spared such trials ourselves. We are grateful when those we love are spared such sufferings. But we do not admire them for it. There are certain kinds of ease – the ease that comes with inheriting great wealth, for example – that we generally hold in suspicion, if not outright contempt.
Imagining the Future

Sep 5, 2024 | thecatholicthing.org | Stephen White

Twenty years ago, The New Atlantis published a remarkable essay by Yuval Levin titled, “Imagining the Future.” (The essay was subsequently lengthened and published as a book.) It’s one of those rare essays that does more than add one or two new volumes to the library of one’s mind; it is the sort of essay that is liable to rearrange the mental furniture altogether.
No Politics is Local Now

Aug 22, 2024 | eppc.org | Stephen White |Stanley Kurtz |Eric Kniffin |Carl R. Trueman

Published August 22, 2024The Catholic ThingIn his 1985 classic, Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman offered a critique of the social and political changes brought about by the ubiquity of television in American society.
The Exultant Nature of Today's Abortion Advocacy

Aug 22, 2024 | eppc.org | Carl R. Trueman |Stanley Kurtz |Eric Kniffin |Stephen White

Published August 22, 2024First ThingsA Planned Parenthood mobile clinic has been offering free abortions just a few blocks from the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which concludes today. The DNC is not officially involved, but that is a minor detail, given that abortion has the status of a creedal non-negotiable in the upper echelons of the Democratic Party. The clinic is simply actualizing the central plank of the Democrats’ election campaign.