Mary Eberstadt

Catholic scandals past and present

Second thoughts about the sexual revolution.

The 45th annual March for Life in Washington arrives on the heels of one more Pew survey about declining faith—this latest indicating that only 4-in-10 Millennials think of Christmas as a religious holiday. All of which raises a new question for those gathering on the Mall in what P.J. O’Rourke has…

Just when it seemed as if the election of Donald Trump had rendered his supporters incoherent with triumphalism and his detractors incoherent with rage—thereby dumbing-down political conversation for a long time to come—something different and more interesting happened. A genuine debate has sprung…

Just when it seemed as if the election of Donald Trump had rendered his supporters incoherent with triumphalism and his detractors incoherent with rage—thereby dumbing-down political conversation for a long time to come—something different and more interesting happened. A genuine debate has sprung…

A Texas high school junior who’s biologically female takes testosterone to "transition" to the other sex, and wins the state's wrestling championship for girls—even though other female players are not allowed to use performance-enhancing drugs, including testosterone. A secret Facebook group of…

President Obama’s self-described "rant" in front of the Canadian prime minister the other week included one more encore of the same drum solo that Candidate Clinton pounds out nonstop: that progressives do a better job of taking care of the poor and needy than .  .  . well, anyone else. The…

A solipsistic, brooding president fights for reelection. A bold attack by terrorists on a U.S. embassy takes the administration by surprise. National malaise increases. Most people are not better off than they were four years before, and many worry that their best days are behind them. Gas prices…

We interrupt the latest bilious rants about religion with a respectful bulletin. Mid-April marked the passing of British philosopher Antony Flew, perhaps the most famous atheist-turned‑theist of recent times. It’s a moment that seems especially worth reflecting on these days, as the West’s…

A young woman came by to visit the Policy Review offices a few weeks ago. Fresh out of a prestigious graduate school, enamored of both philosophy and creative writing, she'd been sent by a mutual friend and was looking for work. How, she wondered, might someone who loved reading and writing, but…

Every once in a while, something you read is so otherwise inexplicable that satire seems the safest bet. Take my accidental encounter last week with a recently released paper, commissioned for reasons inscrutable by the American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO, called "The 'Faculty Bias' Studies:…

JUDGING BY LETTERS to the editor and furious Internet circulation, the New York Times struck a collective nerve the other week with its front-page story announcing that "Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood." According to the article, surveys of 138 female students at Yale…

The part of the Catholic Church's priest-abuse scandal that no one talks about.

Misconceptions Truth, Lies, and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood by Naomi Wolf Doubleday, 326 pp., $24.95 NOW THAT A REAL WAR has been engaged and an ideological truce declared on the home front, it is generally agreed that our criticism should be reserved for certain groups…

UNTIL VERY, VERY RECENTLY, public questioning of the social prohibition against pedophilia--to say nothing of positive celebration of child molestation--was practically non-existent in American life. The reasons why are not opaque. To most people, the very word "pedophilia" summons forth a…

III

Until very, very recently, public questioning of the social prohibition against pedophilia -- to say nothing of positive celebration of child molestation -- was practically non-existent in American life. The reasons why are not opaque. To most people, the very word "pedophilia" summons forth a…

Until very, very recently, public questioning of the social prohibition against pedophilia -- to say nothing of positive celebration of child molestation -- was practically non-existent in American life. The reasons why are not opaque. To most people, the very word "pedophilia" summons forth a…

Until very, very recently, public questioning of the social prohibition against pedophilia -- to say nothing of positive celebration of child molestation -- was practically non-existent in American life. The reasons why are not opaque. To most people, the very word "pedophilia" summons forth a…

How did you while away the first half of your twenties? Did you study? Did you work? Did you hang around with your boyfriend or girlfriend? Did you meet up with your long-lost father and embark on a four-year sexual relationship that began in an airport, continued in motel rooms, apartments, and…

WHEN MOST AMERICANS hear the word "pedophile," they usually think of men like the self-described "child-molesting demon" Larry Don McQuay, who was released from a prison in East Texas in April and driven to San Antonio to begin a closely supervised, but nonetheless semi-free, new life. And when…

A GOOD WORD FOR NAMBLA The most overt attempt by a hip journal to give pedophiles a place at the table came in the form of a May 8, 1995, "Washington Diarist" in the New Republic by Hanna Rosin entitled "Chickenhawk." Ostensibly inspired by a " riveting" documentary of the same name about the North…