Author: John Zmirak (John Zmirak)

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A Sermon for a Season of Violence
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A Sermon for a Season of Violence

Given the spread of violence across America, and the unfortunate politicization of these events, I’ve written a statement that virtually any Protestant or Catholic pastor could release, or deliver from the pulpit, in the wake of the next outrageous attack on innocent life using guns. As a public service to Christians in America, I’ve written...

Church, Immigration, and Nation
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Church, Immigration, and Nation

In the realm of the spirit, there are few prospects more terrifying than meeting God—the Father, the Creator, the unconditioned Absolute Whose essence is His existence.  Even Moses, the appointed mediator for his people, could not view God face to face; so God granted him a burning bush . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...

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Politics Against Nature

As I write, the lame-duck Congress is revving up for one last chance to do really lasting damage to the country, in the form of the cloyingly titled DREAM Act, which would grant an open-ended amnesty to illegal aliens who were brought here as children by their . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to...

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Thomas Molnar, R.I.P.

On July 10, in Richmond, Virginia, the intellectual historian Thomas Molnar went to his reward, leaving behind an array of gorgeous ruins.  By these I mean not his works, which were masterfully crafted and will endure.  No, the ruins that Molnar used to guard are the temples . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to...

The New Scapular
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The New Scapular

When I was in Catholic high school, some 15 years ago, even as the last of the marble altars were being pulled out of America’s churches, the ornate wooden confessionals uprooted in favor of plywood-and-plexiglass “reconciliation rooms,” one devotional custom persisted from centuries before, in the undershirts and blouses of the Vinnics, Patricks, and Marias...

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Old Love

My Downtown is dying. That is perhaps saying too little; Downtown is nearly dead. The neat, grid-patterned, wellpayed streets of the old Baton Rouge, the white hot cement Huey Long pounded Florsheim heel and toe against, the small optimistic stores set up in the 30's and 40 . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to...