(ZENIT News – Crisis Magazine / Steubenville, 04.11.2025).- The parable of the prodigal son has to be one of the most touching parables of God’s mercy, love, and forgiveness. It is a parable of hope if we are willing to admit our deficiencies and to reconcile with God. However, there is an unsettling aspect to the homilies that one often hears pertaining to this parable, an aspect that, in my humble opinion, reflects an overemphasis on psychological concepts over spiritual reality and personal responsibility.

When this parable comes up in the liturgical calendar, it is not uncommon to hear homilies that explicitly or implicitly focus significantly on our personal relationships with our own fathers and how this colors the relationship with God the Father. It often feels as if the earthly relationship is being used as an “excuse” for any woes that we may be experiencing in our relationship with God the Father. Is there not an underlying, implicit statement here potentially teaching the individual to deflect any personal problems in the relationship with God the Father onto someone else? Let’s assess this in a bit more depth.

This article is by no means intended to dismiss the importance of our earthly relationship with our father (and mother) and its potential to impact, among other things, our relationship with God. To dismiss such a reality would be insensible, especially given the substantial evidence, even in the scientific literature, indicating the importance of fathers in development and the negative consequences of absent fathers. However, it is also wrong to overemphasize it. Saying our earthly relationship contributes to our relationship with God does not imply that it determines it.

In lockstep with what we see happening around us in the information deluge we experience, truths or half-truths are being stirred into the same pot as lies, often in a very subtle way. This leads to great confusion, especially when they are then addressed publicly as “definitive truths”—which is everything they’re not. Human behavior is complex and multifaceted in addition to most behaviors displaying a bidirectional relationship.

My own research, among others, has shown that while more positive parenting styles from both mothers and fathers are indicative of fewer religious/spiritual struggles, the father’s parenting was not so predictive of the religious/spiritual struggles. So, what could this mean? In all likelihood, it simply means that there’s more, significantly more, to our relationship with God than the experience of our relationship with our parents. Such relationships may contribute (like everything else) to the quality of relationship, but they certainly are not the be-all and end-all, and they certainly do not seem to supersede our autonomous capacity to have the right relationship with God the Father.

We are taught, on the one hand, that we should see Christ in the other person and see others through the eyes of Christ. Thus, our perspective of our fathers should follow a similar pattern—meaning, we should see our fathers, with all their humanity, through the eyes of God the Father (literally, as prodigal sons in the context of this parable) and pray for them, that, by His grace, they rise toward the perfection He desires of them. They, like each one of us, are a work in progress in the lifelong journey toward holiness, and one can only hope and pray that if they have passed on to the next life, they died trying.

However, in these homilies that focus on how our relationship with God the Father is colored by our earthly fathers, what we are hearing seems to suggest the opposite: that is, we are subtly, or maybe less subtly, encouraging people to consider God the Father through the eyes of the imperfect fathers we all are (for those who are fathers), we all have had since the Fall, and will continue to have until Christ’s return. How can anyone see God for the Father He is with such an approach? We are already limited by the Fall. All that is needed to make it even more difficult is such “suggestions” emphasizing that our perception of God is formed through our experience with our earthly fathers. We all know the power of suggestion: say something enough times and people come to believe it. This leads me to the second point.

Such focus encourages the dispensation of personal responsibility, deflecting my failures, for which I alone am to blame, onto others. Such is the trend across the board in today’s world. It’s much easier to blame others for my woes than to admit my deficiencies! It is much easier to play the victim than to admit responsibility. And, sadly, the root of this teaching is psychology, explicitly or implicitly, at every level—it has penetrated every aspect of our society and even left a mark on Church teaching, or rather how it is taught.

To conclude, it is not my desire to be dismissive of the importance of parent-child relationships in how we interact and perceive God.

However, we also need to realize the significant limitations and potential negative consequences of such teaching approaches.

When my relationship with God is personal and between me and Him, then what is written in Jeremiah 1:5, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,” becomes very personal. However, this personal relationship becomes more difficult and complicated when we seek to bring in a third person (in this case, our earthly father), as it clouds our vision of God because we come to see Him increasingly through the lens of the imperfections of our earthly father. Moreover, it may potentially compromise our relationship with our earthly father as we start perceiving him increasingly as the reason for our own issues in our relationship with God.

Let us pray for our fathers and for each one of us who is a father, as prodigal sons, that we may seek to imitate our Father in Heaven—the Father reflected in the parable of the prodigal son.

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(ZENIT News – Asia News / Milan, 04.11.2025).- Amnesty International today released its annual global report on the death penalty, noting that Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia are responsible for 91 per cent of all known executions carried out worldwide in 2024, which saw the highest number since 2015, with the Middle East in the lead.

In the report, titled Death Sentences and Executions 2024, the human rights organisation points out that the death penalty has also been weaponised by governments to silence critical voices, repress dissent, crack down on protesters and target minorities and ethnic groups.

At a time when the rights of prisoners are often ignored if not violated, Amnesty International renews its call for a moratorium, in particular for people who are in prison for drug-related offences, in many cases detained for the possession of small quantities of drugs or on specious accusations.

Middle Eastern record

In 2024 executions numbered 1,518 in 15 different countries, the highest number since 2015 when at least 1,634 people were put to death. Conversely, for the second year in a row, the number of countries carrying out executions remained at the lowest point on record.

That said, the overall figure does not include the thousands of people believed to be killed each year in China, which is the most active user of the death penalty, as well as North Korea and Vietnam, which are also believed to make extensive use of the death penalty. In addition, the ongoing crises in Palestine and Syria have prevented Amnesty International from providing reliable data for both.

In total, Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia carried out 1,380 executions, with Iraq doubling them (from 172 to at least 345), while Iran hanged 119 more people than the previous year (from at least 853 to 972), accounting for 64 per cent of all known executions.

“The death penalty is an abhorrent crime with no place in today’s world,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.

“While secrecy continued to shroud scrutiny in some countries that we believe are responsible for thousands of executions, it’s evident that states that retain the death penalty are an isolated minority,” she explained.

“With just 15 countries carrying out executions in 2024, the lowest number on record for the second consecutive year, this signals a move away from this cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.”

“Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia were responsible for the sharp spike in deaths last year, carrying out over 91 per cent of known executions, violating human rights and callously taking people’s lives for drug-related and terrorism charges.”

Furthermore, looking at the five countries with the highest number of executions in 2024, Yemen comes in fifth position, but the highest number, albeit underreported, still belongs to China.

Iran, a boom in executions

The Islamic Republic is an emblematic case of the use of the death penalty by Middle Eastern regimes as a method of repression not only of violent or common crimes, especially drug trafficking, but also protests and dissent.

According to Iran Human Rights (IHR), a Norwegian-based NGO with sources inside the country, Iranian authorities carried out at least 59 death sentences in March alone, for a total of 230 in the first quarter of the year, including eight women, according to official sources.

The figure for the first quarter of 2025 is more than double the numbers recorded in the same period in 2024 when 110 death sentences were performed, a sign of an increasingly widespread use of the noose by the clerical regime.

Of last month’s 59 executions, only one (2 per cent) was reported by official sources. At least 31 people were on death row for drug offences and another 28 ended up in the hands of the executioner for convictions based on the principle of retributive justice (qisas).

Five women were hanged, as were seven men were from the Baloch minority and one Kurdish. As for foreigners, at least three Afghans swung from the gallows.

Only 11 of the 230 executions (less than 5%) were announced by official sources. One man was hanged from a public bridge.

Moreover, when tensions with a foreign country rise with threats of war, as in recent weeks with the United States, the number of executions goes up. In 2024 more than 70 per cent of the 975 executions were carried out after tensions between Iran and Israel rose.

IHR Director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam warns that Iran could exploit the crisis with the United States over its nuclear programme to carry out more. “The risk of a significant increase in executions in the coming weeks is serious, [. . .] including those of political prisoners,» he said.

Weaponised by rulers

In its 2024 report, Amnesty International states that in several countries, leaders use the death penalty on the false pretext of improving public security or to instil fear in the population.

In the United States, which has seen a steady upward trend in executions since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, 25 people were executed in 2024 compared to 24 in 2023.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly called for the widespread use of the death penalty as a tool to protect people “from violent rapists, murderers and monsters».

His dehumanising remarks have promoted a false narrative that capital punishment has a unique deterrent effect on crime.

In some countries in the Middle East, death sentences have been used to silence human rights defenders, dissidents, protesters, political opponents, activists and ethnic minorities.

“Those who dare challenge authorities have faced the most cruel of punishments, particularly in Iran and Saudi Arabia, with the death penalty used to silence those brave enough to speak out,” said Agnès Callamard.

Last year, the Islamic Republic, the expert continues, “persisted in their use of the death penalty to punish individuals who had challenged the Islamic Republic establishment” during the «Woman Life Freedom» uprising.

“[T]wo of those people – including a youth with a mental disability” were “executed in connection with the uprising following unfair trials and torture-tainted ‘confessions’, proving how far the authorities are willing to go to tighten their grip on power.”

Meanwhile, Saudi leaders have used the death penalty to silence political dissent and punish Shias who supported “anti-government” protests between 2011 and 2013.

In August, the authorities executed Abdulmajeed al-Nimr on charges related to terrorism and joining al-Qaeda, even though initial court documents referred to his participation in protests.

“Despite the minority of leaders determined to weaponize the death penalty, the tide is turning,” said Agnès Callamard. “It’s only a matter of time until the world is free from the shadows of the gallows.”

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(ZENIT News – Center for Family and Human Rights / Washington, 04.09.2025).- Sometimes, it takes fiction to tell the truth about fact. Fiction told the truth about the often-buried facts of transgenderism in a recent episode of the television series White Lotus.

Set in exotic locales, White Lotus follows the lifestyles of the rich, if not the famous. This year, the series takes place in Thailand, a frequent destination for sex tourism.

A character played by actor Sam Rockwell sits across a restaurant table and tells a quite revealing story about why he was in Thailand. He came for the cheap prostitutes—lots of them. More than a 1,000, he says. As we know, it happens to those addicted to sex, the thrill comes harder and harder to find, so the ante of weirdness is upped and upped.

In the case of Rockwell’s character, he started bringing back “ladyboys.” Getting psychologically darker and deeper into his perversions, he realized maybe he “wanted to be one of these Asian girls” being serviced by men. He proceeded to do this, sometimes four a night.

He says, “..am I a middle-aged white guy on the inside, too? Or, on the inside, could I be an Asian girl?” And his friend, echoing the nonjudgment confusion of our age, says, “I don’t know.”

What most people do not know is that this is the root of “transgenderism.” Social scientist Ray Blanchard developed a taxonomy for “transgenderism” in men years ago. He says there are essentially two types: men who get a sexual thrill out of being seen as a woman and homosexuals who want to attract straight males. All the rest about “feeling” like a woman and “feeling” like a woman trapped in a man’s body is bosh, political bosh developed by the left to hide what “transgenderism” really is.

A few days ago, “the world observe(d) Transgender Day of Visibility…to raise awareness about transgender people,” according to anti-Christian pro-homosexual pressure group GLAAD. Of course, this is false. Transgender Day of Visibility may be a big thing for GLAAD and the other Big Gay hucksters at the UN and elsewhere, but the whole world does no such thing. The whole world still finds such things as alternately gross and comical.

But GLAAD and others have fooled huge portions of the populace about what “trans” really is. GLAAD says you really are an Asian woman on the inside; all you need is drugs and surgery to make it real on the outside.  All of this, in fact, is a sexual fetish, at least in the case of men who identify as trans. Sexual fetishism is why so many of them dress up like strippers and other slut types. They get a sexual charge about being seen that way. And some of them want to attract straight men.

This is something UN delegates must recognize. The phony social science should not fool them. And they should not be intimidated by the loudness of the trans lobby, which includes the most prominent “gay” groups in the world, including the shakedown artists at the Human Rights Campaign. While some homosexuals want to divorce the LGBs from the Ts, it must be remembered that “transgenderism” came directly from the homosexual movement.

It is interesting that the scene in White Lotus plays out with Rockwell explaining that he moved away from those perverted practices. He got sober and embraced Buddhism to heal his contradictions.

This television programs shows not just the truth about transgenderism; it demonstrates also that such perversity can be healed. You really can meditate away the T.

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The survey, carried out for the charity Green Christian, revealed that fasting during Lent remains common. Overall, just over one-half of regular churchgoers indicated that they have fasted from ‘specific types of food and/or drink for Lent’. It is most prevalent among Orthodox (85%) and Roman Catholic (79%) churchgoers, common among churchgoers in the Church of England (57%), and least common among Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists and churchgoers from Independent churches/Brethren (less than 30% in each case).

By contrast, an analysis of fasting from ‘all food for a short period (e.g. 24 hours)’, at whatever time of year, revealed a very different picture. While the overall proportion of respondents engaging in the practice is virtually the same, such fasting is most prevalent among churchgoers from Black Majority Churches (94%), Pentecostal churches (83%) and New Churches (76%). It is again least common among Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists (less than 33% in each case).

Fasting during Lent is more common in younger age groups (61% of 18-44 year olds, compared with 43% of those aged 65 or older). Slightly more female (55%) than male (46%) churchgoers have fasted during Lent. These trends were similar for fasting from ‘all food for a short period.’

The survey found that the practice of ‘abstaining from meat on Fridays’ was followed by over a fifth of churchgoers (22%). By tradition it reflected fasting during Lent, being most common among Orthodox (85%) and Roman Catholic (53%) churchgoers, much less so in the Church of England (18%), and very rare among Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists and also New Church churchgoers (less than 5%).

Tim Cooper, Emeritus Professor of Sustainable Design and Consumption at Nottingham Trent University, who led the research, commented that the differences appear to reflect a combination of varied historic traditions, different theological beliefs and cultural trends:

“Fasting is a means by which many Christians integrate the spiritual and material dimensions of life. While for some it may be partly motivated by a desire for improved health, other motives may be a concern about over-consumption, in its many forms, or a desire to exercise personal discipline in a society seen by many as unduly liberal. In this sense it represents a form of counterculturalism.”

Cat Jenkins, Food Project Officer at Green Christian added:

“Lent is a period during which Christians may reflect upon and seek to address our participation in an unsustainable food system, as well as the need to take care of our bodies. Its continued popularity shows that, even in today’s more secular society, there remain important signs of the influence of Christian traditions.”

The findings are the latest to be released from the survey, which explored a range of issues relating to food from a Christian perspective. Green Christian will be using the findings to promote a more mindful and sustainable approach to consumption among Christians and within churches.

Green Christian is a charity formed in 1981 to offer insights into ecology and the environment to Christian people and churches, and Christian insights to the Green movement. It provides resources, campaigns and events to help people relate environmental issues with their faith.

The research was designed to understand food practices among Christians and within churches. A questionnaire was completed by 605 respondents who described themselves as Christians and had attended a church service at least once a month, on average, during the previous year.

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According to the study, the Pope’s repeated emphasis on family values during 13 pastoral visits to Latin America correlated with a noticeable uptick in fertility rates across the 16 nations he visited. Researchers estimate that his words and presence contributed to between 220,000 and 251,000 additional births.

These findings suggest that John Paul II’s influence extended far beyond the political and ecclesial realms. His charisma and moral clarity, particularly on matters of marriage, life, and the dignity of the family, appear to have resonated deeply—not only with practicing Catholics, but also with the educated, the wealthy, and even with non-Catholics. In fact, the most measurable fertility increases occurred in households less likely to be part of the Church’s regular flock. For Professor Lakshmi Iyer, who led the research, that’s the striking part: “People were really listening,” she notes. “And they were responding.”

In a region where cultural values already held family in high regard, the Pope’s affirmations may have acted as a kind of moral accelerant—reinforcing existing beliefs at a time when global fertility trends were plummeting. From 1960 to 2010, Latin America saw its fertility rate fall from 5.9 children per woman to just 2.2. Yet in the two to five years following each of John Paul II’s visits, this trajectory slowed, as if briefly interrupted by a surge of renewed conviction.

His impact was not monolithic. The study found a fascinating duality in how different messages were received. When the Pope spoke strongly in support of marriage and against abortion and contraception, birthrates rose. When he warned against premarital sex and cohabitation, they dipped. The conclusion? People weren’t just inspired—they were listening selectively, responding both to affirmation and to correction.

This nuanced responsiveness highlights a deeper truth about demography: it is not fate, but culture-driven choice. “Fertility isn’t like the weather,” Iyer observes. “It’s shaped by individual decisions, which in turn are influenced by leaders, values, and identity. And the Pope, in this case, became a powerful agent of cultural memory.”

The Notre Dame paper, provocatively titled “Religion and Demography: Papal Influence on Fertility”, stands out in a field that often attributes demographic shifts to economics or access to education. It posits that spiritual authority, especially when embodied by someone as globally influential as John Paul II, can subtly alter the arc of a generation.

In that sense, this research places the late Pope alongside other religious figures who have shaped national birthrates. One notable example is the Georgian Patriarch Ilia II, who promised to personally baptize every third child of Church-married couples—a symbolic gesture that helped push Georgia’s birthrate above replacement level. But where Ilia II’s influence was deliberate and ceremonial, John Paul II’s effect was indirect, woven into homilies and hugs, declarations and dialogues.

The countries that felt the strongest demographic ripple included El Salvador, where the effect was most pronounced, followed by others like Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil. Across the continent, the Polish Pope often referred to Latin America as “the Continent of Hope.” That phrase, once seen as theological optimism, now bears a quiet demographic footprint.

While past studies have debated the measurable impact of papal influence—some pointing to minor declines in contraceptive use after papal visits, others finding no fertility change at all—this is among the first to connect the dots so robustly between religious messaging and actual birth outcomes on such a scale.

The late Pope never set out to boost fertility rates. But in the end, his voice, full of spiritual gravitas and cultural sensitivity, became part of the continent’s lived rhythm. His message, it seems, did not just land on ears. It took root in homes, in hearts—and, quite literally, in cradles.

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The Nature of Religious Change

Religious identity is not as static as it once seemed. Traditionally, faith was often passed down through generations, with minimal deviation. Today, however, a large number of adults worldwide report having left their childhood religion behind. This transition is not limited to conversion from one religion to another but often involves moving away from religious affiliation altogether.

In some regions, such as India, Israel, Nigeria, and Thailand, religious stability remains strong, with over 95% of adults continuing to identify with the faith they grew up in. However, in parts of East Asia, Western Europe, and the Americas, religious shifts are far more common. For example, nearly half of adults in South Korea (50%) and over a third in the Netherlands (36%) and the United States (28%) no longer adhere to their childhood religion.

The Rise of the Religiously Unaffiliated

One of the most striking aspects of this shift is the rapid growth of those who identify as religiously unaffiliated—often referred to as “nones.” This category includes atheists, agnostics, and individuals who simply do not associate with any particular religion. Many of these individuals were raised in Christian or Buddhist households but have since disengaged from organized faith.

In Sweden, for instance, nearly 30% of adults raised as Christians now classify themselves as atheists, agnostics, or “nothing in particular.” A similar trend is seen in Japan, where a significant portion of former Buddhists no longer claim any religious identity.

However, the movement is not entirely one-directional. In some cases, individuals who grew up without a religious affiliation have later embraced faith. South Korea, for example, has the highest rate of people who were raised without religion but have since joined one, with Christianity being the most common choice.

Which Religions Are Gaining and Losing the Most?

While Christianity remains the world’s largest religion, it is also experiencing the highest rates of attrition. In countries like Germany, for every 20 people who leave Christianity, only one person converts to it. In contrast, certain regions, such as Singapore, have seen small but notable increases in Christian adherents, with approximately three new converts for every person who leaves the faith.

Buddhism, too, is experiencing significant losses, particularly in Japan, Singapore, and South Korea. However, its rate of decline is not as steep as that of Christianity. In Japan, where Buddhism has traditionally been dominant, nearly 12 individuals leave the faith for every one person who joins.

The group experiencing the most substantial growth is, unsurprisingly, the religiously unaffiliated. In Italy, for instance, for every person who was raised without religion but later embraced one, nearly 29 people move in the opposite direction, abandoning the faith of their upbringing.

Age, Education, and Gender: Who Is More Likely to Change?

Religious shifts are not uniform across demographics. In many countries, younger generations are leading the movement away from organized religion. In Spain, nearly half (48%) of young adults aged 18-34 report having changed their religious affiliation, compared to just 36% of those over 50. Similarly, in Colombia, young adults are more than twice as likely to have changed their religious identity than older generations.

Education also plays a role. In nations like the Netherlands, people with higher education levels are significantly more likely to have changed religions. More than 40% of Dutch adults with advanced degrees have altered their religious identity at some point, compared to just 29% of those with lower education levels.

When it comes to gender, men are generally more likely than women to disaffiliate from religion, although in most countries, the difference is not dramatic.

A Global Shift or a Temporary Trend?

The widespread movement away from religious affiliation raises questions about the future of faith worldwide. Are societies becoming increasingly secular, or will some individuals return to religious practice later in life? While some research suggests that people often become more religious with age, the sheer scale of religious disaffiliation in many countries indicates a broader cultural shift rather than a temporary phase.

Complete study here.

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ALL’s report also includes a list of the top twenty Planned Parenthood affiliate CEO earnings: at the top is the CEO of Planned Parenthood Los Angeles, whose 24 facilities earned $155 million in 2022-2023 and whose CEO was compensated with $875,942. This is an impressive jump in compensation at Planned Parenthood, a formally non-profit organization, but whose Directors earn, on average, more than three times the median salary of similar non-profit organizations in terms of both “revenue” and “income.”

Katie Brown, National Director of the American Life League, has denounced the scandalous situation at Planned Parenthood, calling it a «vicious cycle,” through which hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars are disbursed to Planned Parenthood oligarchs and, in turn, kills nearly half a million unborn Americans each year.» Hence the call for the Federal Government to cut off all direct or indirect funding to Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses in the country.

The compiling of data on the compensation of Planned Parenthood’s various CEOs was prompted and subsequently published after a New York Times “pilot” investigation revealed how several state-run subsidiaries of the abortion giant had serious financial problems and high staff turnover rates, in addition to providing substandard patient care. The lead researcher of ALL’s report, Katherine Van Dyke, noted in a March 20, 2025 statement that the CEOs’ rising profits contradict the argument about the abortion company’s financial decline. According to Van Dyke, it has now been proven that «taxpayer money is the true fuel for Planned Parenthood’s profits, and the financial data in its own reports does not match the organization’s claims about its financial problems.»

Following the publication of the NY Times article, former Planned Parenthood Executive and longtime pro-life activist Abby Johnson told FOX News Digital that, as during her decades at Planned Parenthood, the multinational’s use of «expired medications, high staff turnover, horrific working conditions, unqualified staff, huge amounts of money going unused for patient care, and disgusting clinic conditions» continues, despite millions of dollars in taxpayer money. Several Planned Parenthood affiliates (including those in New York, Missouri, and Illinois) have announced the closure of facilities in recent months.

The time has come for Republican leaders and the Trump Administration to truly assess these figures emerging from the American Life League document and eliminate Government reimbursements and any form of public funding for Planned Parenthood, a multinational corporation dedicated to the genocide of innocent children in the womb and the dissemination of other highly harmful practices, such as so-called «gender transition.»

A few weeks ago, in the wake of the U.S. Federal Administration’s increasingly determined fight against drug cartels, the American Life League itself asked President Donald Trump to designate a cartel that distributes abortifacient drugs in the United States as a terrorist group. In a letter to the President, Katie Brown, after thanking Trump for his executive order asking Congress to designate drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, called for tough measures against those who send dangerous abortifacient drugs through the U.S. postal system, explaining that «secret drug trafficking networks are intentionally and covertly distributing these drugs in States where legislators have enacted pro-life laws. They are criminally exploiting the U.S. postal system to subvert the law.»

The main network for distributing abortion pills is Las Libres, which, according to a Website, is based in Mexico and offers free abortion pills to women who cannot afford them, are at least four weeks pregnant, and live in Puerto Rico and the following States: Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia.

Brown also notes in her letter that these abortion pill exchanges «senselessly expose women to unnecessary risks and, worse, take the lives of millions of unborn American citizens.»

Translation of the Italian original by ZENIT’s Editorial Director and, into English, by Virginia M. Forrester

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(ZENIT News – The Denver Catholic / Denver, 04.03.2025).- My brother, a medical doctor, says that I got my MD from Google University. He is not wrong.

I’m a theologian, not a doctor. But, like Pope St. John Paul II before me, I have been fascinated with God’s creation of male and female. In particular, as we have been exploring over these past few columns, the differences in the lived experience of being male or female and the questions around how much of that difference is due to how we were created and how much to the influences surrounding us.

And so, I have been googling a lot.

Here is what I have learned: while the architecture is similar, subtle but profound differences exist in the functioning of men’s and women’s brains. And while neurology can’t possibly explain every difference between persons, it does have a significant impact.

Early clues came in studies done by psychologist Herbert Landsell of persons with brain damage. The right brain controls visual and spatial functions, “big picture,” emotional and abstract thinking and recognition of shapes and patterns. Meanwhile, the left brain controls verbal and linguistic functions, details and practical and concrete thinking. Landsell discovered that men with right-sided brain damage did badly in tests related to spatial skills, abstract thinking and other functions related to the right brain. Likewise, men with left-sided brain damage struggled with language skills, concrete thinking, orderly sequencing and other left-brain skills. But strangely, women with the same types of damage did not struggle in the same ways. Numerous subsequent studies have confirmed Landsell’s findings.

Why would this be? Why would men and women respond differently to essentially identical brain damage?

This is why: in women, language and spatial skills are controlled by both sides of the brain, while in the male brain, each is limited to one hemisphere. So, when one side was damaged, the women could compensate, whereas the men could not.

Other differences have been found in emotional processing. One study found that, in functional MRI tests, women used different neural pathways to regulate emotion. Another found that women often show greater activity in the limbic system, where emotions are processed, indicating greater sensitivity to emotional stimuli. And a third study found that women tend to remember emotionally charged events better.

The most fascinating difference to me relates to the corpus callosum, the connector between the two halves of the brain. Multiple studies indicate that the corpus callosum in women’s brains is larger than in men’s brains and that, as a result, communication between the two hemispheres is easier for women. This would explain why we women tend to have an easier time accessing, identifying and discussing our emotions — because they more easily connect with our verbal centers. This is why studies consistently show that women can better identify other people’s emotions by reading the expressions on their faces.

Meanwhile, men’s brains are more specialized. With skills housed exclusively on one side and less interplay between the hemispheres, men’s brains are more compartmentalized. In the emotional sphere, this makes them less attuned to their feelings. It also makes it easier for them to focus and makes them less distracted by superfluous information.

Of course, as I have said in every installment of this series, these are only tendencies. There are so many other influences on our brains and our behavior. Every human person is unique, and none can be pigeonholed into a neat category.

There is so much more to this science. You can find a nice summary of much of the recent research here. Otherwise, Google is your friend.

But let’s take a minute here to discuss the “why.” Why did God make us with these differences? St. John Paul II wrote extensively about the concept of “complementarity” — the idea that men’s strengths tend to be women’s weaknesses and that women’s strengths tend to be men’s weaknesses. It’s a beautiful reminder that “no man is an island,” and we were created to go through life together, not alone.

Also, on a deeper level, think about this: these brains are housed in different bodies. Women’s bodies give birth. Men’s bodies do not. What do women need after having a baby? Well, the ability to read emotions without verbal cues would come in awfully handy when dealing with a child who can’t yet speak, wouldn’t it? Also, when a woman is focused on recovering from labor while providing for her baby, she is less able to fend for herself. So, she needs protection and provision. And what does the father of her child need when he is out hunting game with a spear so his family can eat? For starters, he needs higher muscle mass and more endurance and aggression. He needs a keen ability to strategize. And he doesn’t need to be distracted by superfluous information or have his feelings poking through and upsetting him. “We had a fight, and now I’m sad.”

“Wait a minute.” I can hear some of you now. “Babies? Are you saying women are only good for having babies?”

Of course not.

In primitive societies, male and female roles were well-defined. Women, with lower muscle mass and a tendency toward pregnancy, were not well equipped to protect the family, and men were not even slightly equipped to give birth.

But today, we live in a world with grocery stores, alarm systems and baby monitors. Parents have a lot more flexibility in how they structure their families’ lives. Different families work it out in different ways, based on their individual strengths and what they judge to be best in their own situations.

Pope St. John Paul II wrote extensively about the “feminine genius” and how women are uniquely gifted, particularly in the interpersonal realm. Maybe it’s the impact of estrogen on the brain, maybe it’s the easy communication between the hemispheres, or maybe it’s the way we process emotion. Whatever it is, he said that women overall have heightened interpersonal gifts to an extent that men overall do not tend to have.

Once again, this is not to say that all women score astronomically high on the EQ meter, or that all men are relational luddites. Individuals vary. Having encountered so many wonderful men in my life — family, friends, relationships — I know that men have their own beautiful gifts in relating to the people who are important to them. No man bashing here. Just saying, along with JPII, that women tend to have an extra bump when it comes to insight into the individual human person.

St. John Paul II was very clear that all areas of life need women’s gifts.

“Women will increasingly play a part in the solution of the serious problems of the future: leisure time, the quality of life, migration, social services, euthanasia, drugs, health care, the ecology, etc. In all these areas, a greater presence of women in society will prove most valuable, for it will help to manifest the contradictions present when society is organized solely according to the criteria of efficiency and productivity, and it will force systems to be redesigned in a way which favors the processes of humanization which mark the civilization of love.” (St. John Paul II, Letter to Women, 1995)

The idea of complementarity is not bad. It does not and should not imply that women are less suited than men to public life or that women’s gifts are limited to the narrow sphere of the domestic. It simply says that men and women, each uniquely gifted, together can accomplish far more and bring about the Kingdom of God far more effectively than either can alone.

And I find that beautiful.

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(ZENIT News – Acton Institute / USA, 03.28.2025).- On August 31, 2023, the French Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports issued a statement titled “Respect of Republican Values” (Respect des Valeurs de la République), forbidding pupils to wear the abaya in public schools throughout the national territory.

The abaya, also called qamis, is part of traditional Middle Eastern clothing that has become increasingly popular in recent years among France’s Muslim population. Despite its not being a religious garment per se, contrary to, for example, the Islamic veil (hijab), the statement estimated that the qamis still “ostensibly manifests a religious affiliation” in the French context and therefore declared that it “cannot be tolerated” in public schools.

Since then, the move has been vindicated twice by rulings from the Conseil d’Etat, France’s highest administrative court, which rules over disputes between the state and its constituents. The court’s approval was grounded in the article L-141-5-1 of the Code of Education, itself a materialization of the now famous law of March 15, 2004, which outlawed all “signs or clothing through which pupils ostensibly manifest a religious affiliation.” Moreover, polls showed that the decision was supported by no less than 81% of the French population, which added plebiscite to legality.

All this may at firsthand seem nothing short of tyranny to the common American mind. The informed reader would probably perceive it as yet another confirmation of the “illiberal” tendency at the core of French secularism, while those still unfamiliar with France’s management of religious pluralism would be shocked by what they could only recognize as an infringement on one’s sacred freedom to express and practice their religion. Looking for explanations, they might remember that the French Revolution was, after all, plagued from the beginning by antireligious tendencies; that the Communards kidnapped and executed priests, just as Robespierre guillotined Carmelites; and that Tocqueville himself opposed the religious but “free and enlightened” United States to a French Republic threatened by “incredulity” and victim of “stupidity and ignorance.”

Indeed, despite France’s being one of the first countries that, like the United States, entrenched secularism in its constitution, the French version of secularism has since the late 18th century been perceived and depicted by many as inherently opposed to the American understanding of religious freedom as defined in the First Amendment. For the past three centuries or so, the dominant American perception of laïcité has thus been characterized as “anticlericalism” and “atheism,” in which political and social hostility toward religion supersedes the protection and upholding of religious freedom.

In fact, this perception of revolutionary France as an anti-clerical and essentially godless nation irritated the writings of prominent intellectuals and politicians of the age. John Adams, perhaps the most conservative of the Founding Fathers, famously shared his circumspection about the Revolution unfolding in France in a letter to one Dr. Price in 1790, confessing that he did not know “what to make of a republic of 30 million atheists.” In 1794, Noah Webster condemned what he perceived as the French revolutionary government’s attempt to suppress religious morals and replace them by a vague and artificial “cult of reason.” Similarly, in History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution some 11 years later, Mercy Ottis Warren critiqued the French spirit of “impiety” and denial of the existence of God. And during the campaign for the presidential elections of 1800, Thomas Jefferson’s opponents, chief among them Alexander Hamilton, warned voters about a “decadent, irreligious, and immoral” Francophile candidate who would flood the country with the “torrents of atheism set free by the French insurrection.” And the list could go on.

The dominant early-American skepticism regarding the then-burgeoning and “radical” French blend of secularism still influences attitudes to this day. Consider, for example, the outrage that the tasteless depiction of the Last Supper in the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics sparked in the United States last summer. Shocking, sure. But surprising? I remember American friends of mine essentially raising their shoulders in a resigned sigh. “It’s France, after all,” they all said, as if this was to be expected. The “republic of 30 million atheists” trope is alive and well.

As argued by Amandine Barb in Incompréhensions transatlantiques: le discours américain sur la laïcité française (2014), laïcité has historically functioned as a counter-model to American secularism, simultaneously shedding light on the singularities and fragilities of the American approach to the relation of church and state. And while its inner mechanisms and implications have significantly evolved since the Bastille fell, in matters pertaining to secularism and religious freedom, France remains to this day that quintessential “Other” through which the “I” is best reaffirmed.

~~~

What is it, then, about the French understanding of secularism that appears so peculiar to the American mind? First, “secular” (or more exactly laïque) is mentioned in the first article of the French Constitution of October 4, 1958, as one of the defining characteristics of the Fifth Republic, along with “indivisible,” democratic,” and “social.” Note that there is a subtle yet fundamental difference from the formulation found in the Bill of Rights: While the First Amendment effectively prohibits the establishment of a state religion and protects religious freedom, the article does not explicitly define the United States as a secular republic, nor establishes secularism as a central characterizing feature. Consequently, debating secularism implies far more to the French than merely discussing a particular policy or organizing political principle: In the French context, it is one of the fundamental elements of French political identity. Institutionally, this is translated by the recognition of laïcité as defined by the seminal law of December 9, 1905, on the separation of church and state as a principle of constitutional value, placing it on the very top of the legal hierarchy within the French system. The juxtaposition of the terms laïque and indivisible should, therefore, not be taken lightly: It means that, to the French, abandoning laïcité would, in a sense, be akin in magnitude to losing Normandy.

Second, the French approach to the relationship of church and state is essentially different from the American one in both its content and scope. Laïcité goes well beyond the mere separation of political and religious institutions. While in America the state is legally bound to an attitude of neutrality vis-à-vis religion, the latter’s presence and open expression in the public sphere is nevertheless accepted, if not encouraged, as a safeguard of democracy, tolerance, and civic vitality. In the American conception, civic and religious virtue can be seen as the two separate columns of the same national edifice, each necessary to avoid the crumbling of the whole structure. In contrast, the French conception resembles two separate buildings standing side by side with no communicating corridors, such that getting inside one of them necessarily requires getting out of the other. It consists in the establishment of a sort of security perimeter, of a minimal distance between the political and the religious. “I want what our forefathers wanted … the state in its home, and the church in hers,” wrote Victor Hugo. This “distancing” of civic from religious life is manifested in the imperative of strict division of the private and the public spheres, with religious expression being confined to the boundaries of the former.

Does that mean that, in France, one may wear a cross, a yarmulke, or a hijab at home but must remove it as soon as he or she goes out to the grocery store? Not quite. Aristide Briand, prominent French political figure and one of the “fathers” of the law of 1905, opposed such outright interdiction and reminded everyone that the neutrality of the state implies that there is no distinction between “religious” and “non-religious” garments. He reportedly joked that if one wished to “dress up” by wearing a friar’s robe while walking down the street, the state would not forbid him to do so. Accordingly, far from banning it, the law of 1905 makes no explicit mention of religious clothing. This allows for a clarification of another issue facing the principle of laïcité: that of the ever-moving boundaries of the public sphere. While the early interpretation of the law of 1905 limited the obligation of neutrality to the state and its representatives, France has witnessed an ongoing extension of the public spaces where this obligation applies, including, for example, public schools, transformed into “sanctuaries” where pupils must be preserved from any sort of religious influence.

Could, then, the American remonstrance against the French model and its “radical illiberalism” be justified, all duly considered? Understood, certainly. Justified, less so. According to French academic Patrick Weil, laïcité is “first of all the freedom to believe or not to believe without exogeneous pressure.” However, for these criteria to be realized, the public sphere must be one where individuals are perceived and treated purely as “citizens,” and where the exercise of religion must be limited so as not to impede on the others’ right to live the life of their choosing in complete freedom, including from religious influence. French MP Jean Jaurès did not say otherwise when he praised laïcité in an article in the newspaper La Dépêche in 1889, exalting it as “this living freedom which refuses no problem and denies itself no height.”

In France, the law’s protection extends beyond mere freedom of conscience in the positive sense. Rather, the freedom to exercise one’s religion finds its limits in the negative understanding of freedom of conscience, manifest in the explicit consecration of the right “not to believe.” Art. 31 of the law of 1905 accordingly provides for the same punishments for those who would prevent someone to believe in or practice a religion as well as for those who would force them to. An early controversy provides a telling illustration of this last point: In the aftermath of the 1905 law’s adoption, atheists in French communes complained that they did not want to hear church bells ring all day, leading mayors to strike compromises with the local Catholic population to ring them on specific occasions to accommodate the latter’s freedom to exercise their religion with the former’s freedom to be secure in their lack thereof. The principle, at heart, and however paradoxical it might seem, remains a fundamentally liberal one. By banning headscarves and abayas in public schools, the Republic, to quote Weil’s words, frees individuals from the “entrapment” of “the only place where they feel at home, the house of a faith,” and makes them enter into “the space of citizenship.” There come the two buildings.

Therefore, when we look at such things as bans on religious clothing from beyond the Atlantic, one must begin by remembering that laïcité remains a decisively French answer to universal problems and cannot be fully understood nor sincerely investigated in abstraction of the historic, political, and social context in which it was first formulated. France, since the Revolution, has essentially been fighting off the haunting memory of the collaboration of the historically Catholic majority religion with the “oppressive” and “illegitimate” Ancien régime. But still, one might ask, why not follow the same course as America and adopt a liberal-pluralist approach? Why this need, to this day, to restrict religion to the private sphere and to dissociate it from civic life altogether?

Maybe in part because the Colonies were yet a nation in the making, a political terra nullius with starting points as numerous as the ships arriving to and the languages spoken on its shores, and a horizon so vast that it could fit every aspiration. Everything was yet to be done, and there were no palaces to take, no gardens to be reused, no government buildings to simply step into and redecorate. The French revolutionaries, in a sense, were heirs to a past that was too heavy for them to be entirely rid of, and prisoners of a space whose boundaries were too rigid to move, no matter how hard they tried. While America resolutely advanced toward what could be, France wanted to prevent what had been in order to escape the past.

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(ZENIT News – Asia News / Beirut, 03.27.2025).- The rise to power in Syria of a Sunni Islamist regime and the agreement on the application of United Nations Resolution 1701 in the southern sector have radically changed the geopolitical situation in Lebanon.

The country of cedars is gradually, but with difficulty, freeing itself from the grip of Hezbollah and Iran. However, caught in the crossfire, it must learn to manage the new tensions.

On the border with Syria, with the exception of the border posts controlled by the army, the Shiite Party of God continues to be present, even if it now has to face the army of Damascus, mainly composed of Sunni groups that are still not very integrated.

The latter no longer tolerate the trafficking of goods and people controlled by Hezbollah and the allied Shiite tribes, which prevailed under the dictatorship of former President Bashar al-Assad.

A week ago, violent clashes broke out between Syrian forces and traffickers in the village of Hoch Sayyed Ali. This area near the border is crossed by a river that divides it in two, with one part in Syria and the other in Lebanon.

At least 10 people were killed in the clashes, which only stopped following the forceful intervention of the Lebanese army on 17 March. Furthermore, Damascus accused Hezbollah of having instigated the kidnapping and killing, by traffickers, of three soldiers from Hay’at Tahriri al-Sham (HTS), the core of the new Syrian army, something that the pro-Iranian movement formally denied.

Village on fire

Seven Lebanese were killed in the fighting, including the son of a Shia tribal leader. With the arrival of the Lebanese army, the Syrian forces finally withdrew from the Lebanese part of the village, but not before looting and setting fire to houses.

This incident clearly reflects the fragility of a situation that could easily be repeated, given that Lebanon shares a 330-kilometre border with Syria, with no official demarcation at several points.

Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria in 2013, initially motivated by a concern to preserve its communication links with Iran, strengthened its grip on the border villages.

The Shiite clans, who chose to belong to Lebanon in the 1920s, still live on both sides of the fragile border. Until recently, the absence of state control allowed free movement between the two countries, transforming the region into a lawless zone and a free trade area.

And it is precisely to deal with this emergency situation, and others that could occur, that the new Lebanese Minister of Defence, Miche Menassa, will travel to Damascus tomorrow, 26th March, to meet his Syrian counterpart, Mourhaf Abou Qasra. On the agenda will be the smuggling of arms, petrol and drugs, which affects part of the population of the Bekaa.

Israeli reprisals

In southern Lebanon too, the new government in power in Beirut is facing a situation of profound instability. Last week the situation almost got out of hand when three rockets were fired anonymously at Metoulla, the largest city and the one closest to the Israeli border, and intercepted by Israel.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack and Hezbollah washed its hands of it, denying any involvement. However, this didn’t stop Israel from going on the rampage and carrying out at least 18 military operations against the South, killing eight people. One of the raids also hit the city of Tyre. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz threatened to bomb Beirut and intense contacts were initiated at the highest levels, with Washington and Paris, to avoid a very dangerous escalation that could cause a full-scale conflict to break out again.

At the moment there are three hypotheses regarding the identity of the perpetrators of the attack from the Land of the Cedars to the Jewish State. The Lebanese army found three makeshift launch ramps in a remote valley north of the Litani River. Some have linked this incident to the resumption of war in the Gaza Strip, others to Israel. It is surprising that the ramps escaped Israeli surveillance, whose drones fly over southern Lebanon day and night.

Finally, some believe that the perpetrators of this attack are rogue elements within Hezbollah; a perspective fuelled by the current phase, in which the November agreement – which in practice amounts to a capitulation – has widened the gap between a ‘moderate’ political wing loyal to Naïm Qassem, the new secretary general, and a military wing represented by Wafic Safa. The arrival in Lebanon in April of Morgan Ortagus, Donald Trump’s new special envoy to Beirut, will reveal whether Israeli pressure is just the beginning of a new military offensive, or blackmail to provoke new violence and push Lebanon into normalising relations with the Jewish state.

Joint Islamic-Christian holiday

It was in this climate of tension that Lebanon celebrated the Annunciation on March 25, declared a joint Muslim-Christian holiday in 2010. Considered a milestone in the process of coexistence in Lebanon, this year’s celebration will centre on a ceremony in the city of Jbeil, with the participation of local bishops and Sunni and Shiite dignitaries.

The programme includes exchanges of visits between churches and mosques, readings from the Gospel and the Koran and words of praise, simultaneous tolling of bells and calls of the muezzin, as well as psalms broadcast over loudspeakers. The event will end with an iftar, as this year the fasting of the lunar month of Ramadan coincides with Lent.

Everyone, except the fundamentalists, is pleased with the level of civilisation that characterises this celebration, which takes place in the spirit of the Abu Dhabi Declaration of Brotherhood signed by Pope Francis and the Imam of al-Azhar, but which remains without any real popular significance.

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