Public Discourse

1 week ago | thepublicdiscourse.com | John Doherty

Charles Taylor has said (following Max Weber) that a defining feature of our “secular age” is its “disenchantment.” In past ages of faith, religion suffused public culture, so that belief in the supernatural—an “enchanted” realm beyond everyday, sensible reality—was as easy as breathing. Roadside shrines, processions through towns and fields, and bells calling the faithful to prayer made God’s presence evident to everyone. But those days are long gone.

2 weeks ago | thepublicdiscourse.com | J. Brian Charles |Alan W. Dowd

Some Christian thinkers are seizing on the Trump administration’s efforts to force an end to the war in Ukraine as evidence of just war theory in action. For instance, noting that the just war tradition “requires us to determine just cause, but it also asks us to ponder the probability of success,” R. R.

2 weeks ago | thepublicdiscourse.com | Daniel Ross Goodman

The recent turmoil at Columbia University offers a stark lesson in the complexities of combating anti-Semitism in academia. On March 7, 2025, the Trump administration froze $400 million in federal grants to the university, citing its failure to curb rampant harassment of Jewish students—a move that underscored a genuine crisis but quickly spiraled into a broader controversy.

3 weeks ago | thepublicdiscourse.com | Matthew Wilson

This March marked the five-year anniversary of the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns in the United States. This may shock some readers, but I was a senior in high school when, over the course of a few weeks in March 2020, the country—and the world—suddenly shut down. My school district announced that schools would be closed—at first temporarily, but an announcement soon followed that schools would remain closed for the remainder of the academic year.

1 month ago | thepublicdiscourse.com | Edward Feser

The Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to enforce U.S. immigration laws have been controversial, not least in Catholic circles. On one hand, Vice President J. D. Vance has defended the administration’s restrictive immigration policy by appealing to the theological notion of the ordo amoris (or order of charity), according to which our strongest obligations are to those closest to us, such as our fellow citizens.